Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
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I so called it
Although there's still a chance the prophecy wasn't talking about Cranchus after all.
I so called it
Although there's still a chance the prophecy wasn't talking about Cranchus after all.
If Cranchus is now part of Abernia, I suppose he could "drive the spike clean through", but it just seems off to me considering the last line. He can't die to renew hope if he's not exactly alive as it is anyway. But I guess that could be it.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 392
Sister Act
Their sleep is deep and peaceful, untroubled by nightmares or worry, but Aravis has a vision of the surface. It is the most momentous he has had yet.
The location – underground, probably? It’s a place that’s so well protected from divinations, even this vision from the Maze is a bit cloudy around the edges. But wherever this sanctum lies, it is being assaulted. The room into which your vision extends has recently seen some immense magical energies. The rock walls are fractured and scarred. Shattered glasswork is scattered everywhere, and scorched paper scraps still waft here and there through the charged air.
It’s also a bloody mess. Bodies litter the floor, killed by means various and gruesome. Judging from their descriptions, you guess that five of them were the adventuring group led by the siblings Jerzembeck and Junaya, whose vital missions for the Spire never brought them into the Company’s sphere.
Others you are saddened to recognize more clearly. The golden head of Five Silent Crow has been crumpled like tin, as if it had imploded in on itself. Isabel Horn is a statue, her left arm broken off at the elbow. The bodies of Anhaya Sunblossom and the Pikonish priestess Cornelia are scorched ruins. Attrius and Portia, the bodyguards assigned to keep you safe at Verdshane, seem to have hacked one another apart, judging by their wounds and bloody blades. Sagiro Emberleaf’s sprawled body is in better shape than some of the others, but his left leg from thigh to ankle is charred to the bone. His face has been scalded and half of his moustache has been burned away.
In fact, only two beings seem to still be alive in this chamber. One is Parthol Runecarver, injured but not near fatally. He dusts off his robes and stretches his neck, then smiles cruelly at the kneeling man before him. That man is Tor Bladebearer, who looks like he was rendered solidly paralyzed in the act of standing up. An ornate flaming sword is gripped tightly in his right hand, a useless appendage to the statue Tor has become.
“Well, wasn’t that interesting,” says Parthol. “Twelve against one, and you still couldn’t manage it. None of you could even lay a hand on me! You just weren’t in my league. Though if it makes you feel better, you wouldn’t have bested Naradawk, either.”
He idly flicks a piece of fallen ash from Tor’s shoulder. “But now my job has become more difficult. At least you would have weakened his forces somewhat. Now there’s no one of any significant power – myself excepted – standing between Naradawk and complete control of Charagan. I’m going to have to spend more serious effort and firepower taking the place over from him. What an annoyance! I hope you feel good about yourself… Tor, is it? Or would you prefer Darien?”
Tor, of course, says nothing.
“I suppose I could leave you alive,” he says. “You and Isabel are both salvageable. But no, now that you’ve found a way to breach my defenses, I can’t let you live. Naradawk might capture you and make you squeal. I suppose I really do have to make an end of you.”
He puts a hand on Tor’s head. “I might as well try this first,” he says. “It worked for Glade and Royce, eventually.” He casts disintegrate, and sweat pours down Tor’s face, the only sign of the pain he feels.
“If I run out of disintegrates before you’re dead, what should I try then?” asks Parthol. “Would you think less of me if I just magic missiled you to death?” He casts another disintegrate, and again Tor resists, but his eyes are bloodshot and watery.
“Third time’s the charm, they say,” says Parthol. But before he can invoke another spell, he himself seizes up, his eyes going wide with surprise. On the ground behind him, Sagiro’s body has dragged itself over to lie next to Parthol’s feet. Sagiro’s eyes are still closed, his mouth hanging slack, but his right hand has reached out, seemingly of its own volition, and closed around Parthol’s ankle.
Parthol straightens, takes a step back, and waves his hand. Tor feels the paralysis lift, and surges to his feet. Your vision of the scene suddenly becomes much sharper, clearer.
“Gah,” says Parthol. “That’s the first time I’ve ever gotten someone unconscious to move. It’s a sickening feeling, honestly."
His body convulses, his arms bending at painful angles, his facial muscles contorting wildly.
“Sooner would be better,” Parthol gasps. “He’s resisting something fierce. I think I’ve removed all of his abjurations and resistances, but damn, his mind is strong! He’ll have them back in less than a minute.”
Tor nods, and cocks his sword over his shoulder in anticipation of a tremendous swing. It blazes with enchantments infused into it by scrolls from the Vault. “Farazil, by the power invested in me as a Knight of the Spire Guard, I hereby grant you citizenship in the Kingdom of Charagan, with all its attendant duties and protections.” So saying, he brings his sword down upon the possessed and defenseless Parthol Runecarver, and shears the head from the old wizard’s shoulders.
A cheer goes up from the Company at hearing Aravis recount his dream. Their mercy toward Farazil has been amply rewarded. But two troubling truths go unspoken. First, that the ability of their friends on the surface to resist Naradawk has just been badly diminished. And second, that none of this will matter if they fail to stop Seven Dark Words from awakening or summoning the Adversary.
Kibi finds he can stone shape an exit from the dome with the merest thought. A smooth, wide boulevard now stretches away to the east. As they prepare for what could be the day of confrontation with the Evil Trio, casting spells and making plans, Morningstar notes that Laramon’s Jade Clover is still warm, and may be a little bit warmer than it was yesterday.
They step out of the dome, and the rank radiation of Essence strikes them. Dranko’s head prickles uncomfortably. Wind walk fails to function, and even phantom steed fails; no spell will work if it invokes something misty or insubstantial. Kibi is not surprised. This is the Deep Earth.
“We started out on foot,” says Ernie. “We’ll finish this on foot.”
It feels good to have their boots on solid stone, and they march, their last march, to face the greatest danger Abernia has ever known. The heat of Essence grows stronger as they go, battering their protection from evil spells. Ernie stands in front, the Ward of Drosh around his neck allowing them to progress. Without it, none of them would be able to take even a single step forward.
Then, up ahead, the passage widens, and some three hundred feet distant it ends at a flat black wall. In the very center of that wall is something shiny and white, but they’re too far away to make out any details. Dranko, whose sight is keenest, peers into the gloom as they approach, and what at first is just a white oval against a dark background, resolves into a face.
The corridor widens further, and now they are only a hundred feet from the black wall. The length of the wall they can see, stretching across the entire width of a small cavern, is mildly convex to them, as though it’s only one small section of a great circular barrier. The gleaming white face, twenty feet in diameter, is dead center to them, as if set to watch this very approach. The wall is dead black, giving no cues of depth, and the marble face is unnaturally clean, such a pure white that its features are hard to make out. The only thing that gives shape to the face are little black dots that slide across its cheeks, its forehead, its eyeballs.
The wall, they realize, is made of pure congealed Essence. And embedded into it, is the head of the Sister God Wlaqua.
Closer now. Wlaqua’s enormous white marble eyes dart back and forth, and its mouth opens. She lets out a terrible howl, filled with anguish, frustration and shame.
“Well, look at that,” says Grey Wolf. “It’s warning someone that we’re here.”
He casts indomitability on Kibi.
Dranko and Flicker move forward together, though it’s not clear how they might flank something set into a wall. The eyes swivel to watch them, and Wlaqua screams, “Gooooo baaaaaack!”
Magical energies blast outward from Wlaqua’s head, striking most of the Company. Morningstar’s mind status spell pings: something has tried to dominate Kibi, but failed. It pings again, as Dranko resists a feeblemind. Ernie is turned to stone. Grey Wolf resists a disintegrate but suffers minor burns. And Dranko… Dranko starts to caper and prance, struck by Otto’s Irresistible Dance.
“Flee for your lives!” screams Wlaqua. “Go back!”
“You’ve made a terrible mistake,” Morningstar says to Her. “We’re here to restore things.”
“Yes!” agrees Wlaqua, Her voice desperate. “You have to slay me, but you can’t! I’m a God!”
Aravis casts protection from spells upon Grey Wolf, Flicker, Morningstar and himself. Morningstar casts holy aura on everyone. Kibi uses break enchantment to restore Ernie to flesh, before quickening xorn movement and sinking into the ground.
Ernie (who felt his skin grow hard for a moment, but who must have resisted a petrification) casts mass doughy folk, giving all of his allies further protection.
“Can’t we circumvent you by finding another way through the wall?” he asks Wlaqua.
“They’ve placed me at the weak spot!” She screams. “It’s the way they went through. It’s the only way to…. Aughhhh!” She shrieks louder, as though some painful compelling force cut Her off, not wanting Her to say more.
Grey Wolf casts ironstorm, centered on Wlauqa’s head. Flicker runs forward, thinking Dranko is by his side. “Come on, Dranko, keep up! Can’t you… oh, for the Gods’ sake.”
“I’m sorry” Wlaqua screams. She erupts with another burst of magic energy. Flicker sags, struck by a potent energy drain. Ernie feels his own energy drain forced out of his own mind and cast back upon him, though – thanks to the Spell Resistance granted by Morningstar’s holy aura, he is unaffected by it. Aravis resists feeblemind and Ernie shrugs off hold monster. Dranko is stripped of his own highest level spell: cure serious wounds.
Aravis casts maze on Wlaqua. To all of their surprise, the Head vanishes. It doesn’t leave a hole behind, just more solid black oozing Essence. It seems that it’s not Wlaqua’s severed head that fights them, but merely her sliced-off face.
The Company moves forward, but Wlaqua soon reappears. Even in death, the Sister God radiates a furious power that competes with the evil of the wall of Essence. They’re not sure they have the wherewithal to harm Her, and eventually Her magical blasts will prove too much for them.
They need help, and Morningstar knows how to summon it. She casts miracle. “Yavin!” she shouts. “We face your Sister. She is insane. We require your assistance.”
There is a ripple of power in front of Morningstar, so strong that the ground shakes and the air ripples, though the Black Wall doesn’t react at all. A being appears in front of Morningstar, a twenty foot black marble giantess holding a black sword.
It is the Sister God Yavin, and She is dead. Her black body is riddled with holes, and large pieces have been hacked out of Her, leaving weeping wounds. One of her eyes has been gouged out, and the gap where it once was goes nearly all the way through her head.
“Sister!” wails Wlaqua. “I killed you, and I’m sorry!”
“I am sorry too,” says Yavin. “But it appears I have been given another chance to set things right. You were very, very foolish, Sister. You knew what you were dealing with. Are you at all surprised?”
“Have mercy, Sister!” screams Wlaqua.
Yavin looks down upon Morningstar. “You have brought me back from the Necroplis of Naslund,” she says, her voice powerful but underscored with cracks. “My time here is very short. What would have me do?”
“When You go back, take Your sister with You,” says Morningstar.
“I cannot. She can only go if She is dead, but the Adversary’s foul power keeps Her alive.”
“Then we need to get through this wall,” says Morningstar. “Right where Your Sister is.”
Yavin understands. She raises her enormous black sword. “I take no pleasure in this,” She says to Wlaqua. And the Sister God Yavin, who once resolved conflicts peacefully but who in death is freed from that tenet, takes a mighty swing at Wlaqua’s head. A large chunk of white marble is knocked free from Her cheek, and it lands on the ground with a heavy thud. More, a spider-web of cracks appears, running through the entire Head, and it no longer radiates its aura of indomitability.
Yavin steps back and motions to Her sister, while Wlaqua screams in pain.
Kibi casts cone of cold, and it clearly damages the Head. Aravis casts a maximized chain lightning into the ironstorm and Wlaqua screams again.
“Let me introduce you to Ell.” Morningstar closes, quickens divine power, and strikes once with Ell’s Will. It knocks another piece out Wlaqua’s head. “It hurts, it hurts!” She cries, and though Her pain is genuine, the Company thinks Her voice also sounds almost encouraging, as though She wants them to hurry and make an end of Her.
Dranko strikes with his whip, and Grey Wolf dissolves most of Wlaqua’s nose with a acid orb. The black spots on Wlaqua’s face roil, and sympathetic lesions burst out on Yavin’s dead countenance.
“I’m sorry!” Wlaqua shrieks. “It’s not me that’s doing i!”
“It is you, Sister,” says Yavin. “You made this happen, and now you are paying the price of it.”
Once more Wlqaua unleashes magical energies on her attackers. Aravis is set to dancing, and Flicker is struck blind, but everyone else resists the various effects.
Dranko lines up his whip strikes more carefully this time, and connects twice, knocking a hole straight through Her cheek. They can see the Black Wall behind it.
Kibi pops up from the ground and casts greater dispel magic on Aravis, curing him of his unwanted disposition to tango. Aravis immediately casts disintegrate, and the Head fails to resist. The entire thing flashes and becomes a gritty white powder, falling to the ground like a bucket of white sand upended by a giant.
“I’m sorry, Milady,” says Dranko to Yavin.
“Thank You for Your help,” adds Ernie.
“You are welcome,” says Yavin, “but this is no longer my place.” She nods, and vanishes.
…to be continued…
Sister Act
Their sleep is deep and peaceful, untroubled by nightmares or worry, but Aravis has a vision of the surface. It is the most momentous he has had yet.
The location – underground, probably? It’s a place that’s so well protected from divinations, even this vision from the Maze is a bit cloudy around the edges. But wherever this sanctum lies, it is being assaulted. The room into which your vision extends has recently seen some immense magical energies. The rock walls are fractured and scarred. Shattered glasswork is scattered everywhere, and scorched paper scraps still waft here and there through the charged air.
It’s also a bloody mess. Bodies litter the floor, killed by means various and gruesome. Judging from their descriptions, you guess that five of them were the adventuring group led by the siblings Jerzembeck and Junaya, whose vital missions for the Spire never brought them into the Company’s sphere.
Others you are saddened to recognize more clearly. The golden head of Five Silent Crow has been crumpled like tin, as if it had imploded in on itself. Isabel Horn is a statue, her left arm broken off at the elbow. The bodies of Anhaya Sunblossom and the Pikonish priestess Cornelia are scorched ruins. Attrius and Portia, the bodyguards assigned to keep you safe at Verdshane, seem to have hacked one another apart, judging by their wounds and bloody blades. Sagiro Emberleaf’s sprawled body is in better shape than some of the others, but his left leg from thigh to ankle is charred to the bone. His face has been scalded and half of his moustache has been burned away.
In fact, only two beings seem to still be alive in this chamber. One is Parthol Runecarver, injured but not near fatally. He dusts off his robes and stretches his neck, then smiles cruelly at the kneeling man before him. That man is Tor Bladebearer, who looks like he was rendered solidly paralyzed in the act of standing up. An ornate flaming sword is gripped tightly in his right hand, a useless appendage to the statue Tor has become.
“Well, wasn’t that interesting,” says Parthol. “Twelve against one, and you still couldn’t manage it. None of you could even lay a hand on me! You just weren’t in my league. Though if it makes you feel better, you wouldn’t have bested Naradawk, either.”
He idly flicks a piece of fallen ash from Tor’s shoulder. “But now my job has become more difficult. At least you would have weakened his forces somewhat. Now there’s no one of any significant power – myself excepted – standing between Naradawk and complete control of Charagan. I’m going to have to spend more serious effort and firepower taking the place over from him. What an annoyance! I hope you feel good about yourself… Tor, is it? Or would you prefer Darien?”
Tor, of course, says nothing.
“I suppose I could leave you alive,” he says. “You and Isabel are both salvageable. But no, now that you’ve found a way to breach my defenses, I can’t let you live. Naradawk might capture you and make you squeal. I suppose I really do have to make an end of you.”
He puts a hand on Tor’s head. “I might as well try this first,” he says. “It worked for Glade and Royce, eventually.” He casts disintegrate, and sweat pours down Tor’s face, the only sign of the pain he feels.
“If I run out of disintegrates before you’re dead, what should I try then?” asks Parthol. “Would you think less of me if I just magic missiled you to death?” He casts another disintegrate, and again Tor resists, but his eyes are bloodshot and watery.
“Third time’s the charm, they say,” says Parthol. But before he can invoke another spell, he himself seizes up, his eyes going wide with surprise. On the ground behind him, Sagiro’s body has dragged itself over to lie next to Parthol’s feet. Sagiro’s eyes are still closed, his mouth hanging slack, but his right hand has reached out, seemingly of its own volition, and closed around Parthol’s ankle.
Parthol straightens, takes a step back, and waves his hand. Tor feels the paralysis lift, and surges to his feet. Your vision of the scene suddenly becomes much sharper, clearer.
“Gah,” says Parthol. “That’s the first time I’ve ever gotten someone unconscious to move. It’s a sickening feeling, honestly."
His body convulses, his arms bending at painful angles, his facial muscles contorting wildly.
“Sooner would be better,” Parthol gasps. “He’s resisting something fierce. I think I’ve removed all of his abjurations and resistances, but damn, his mind is strong! He’ll have them back in less than a minute.”
Tor nods, and cocks his sword over his shoulder in anticipation of a tremendous swing. It blazes with enchantments infused into it by scrolls from the Vault. “Farazil, by the power invested in me as a Knight of the Spire Guard, I hereby grant you citizenship in the Kingdom of Charagan, with all its attendant duties and protections.” So saying, he brings his sword down upon the possessed and defenseless Parthol Runecarver, and shears the head from the old wizard’s shoulders.
A cheer goes up from the Company at hearing Aravis recount his dream. Their mercy toward Farazil has been amply rewarded. But two troubling truths go unspoken. First, that the ability of their friends on the surface to resist Naradawk has just been badly diminished. And second, that none of this will matter if they fail to stop Seven Dark Words from awakening or summoning the Adversary.
Kibi finds he can stone shape an exit from the dome with the merest thought. A smooth, wide boulevard now stretches away to the east. As they prepare for what could be the day of confrontation with the Evil Trio, casting spells and making plans, Morningstar notes that Laramon’s Jade Clover is still warm, and may be a little bit warmer than it was yesterday.
They step out of the dome, and the rank radiation of Essence strikes them. Dranko’s head prickles uncomfortably. Wind walk fails to function, and even phantom steed fails; no spell will work if it invokes something misty or insubstantial. Kibi is not surprised. This is the Deep Earth.
“We started out on foot,” says Ernie. “We’ll finish this on foot.”
It feels good to have their boots on solid stone, and they march, their last march, to face the greatest danger Abernia has ever known. The heat of Essence grows stronger as they go, battering their protection from evil spells. Ernie stands in front, the Ward of Drosh around his neck allowing them to progress. Without it, none of them would be able to take even a single step forward.
Then, up ahead, the passage widens, and some three hundred feet distant it ends at a flat black wall. In the very center of that wall is something shiny and white, but they’re too far away to make out any details. Dranko, whose sight is keenest, peers into the gloom as they approach, and what at first is just a white oval against a dark background, resolves into a face.
The corridor widens further, and now they are only a hundred feet from the black wall. The length of the wall they can see, stretching across the entire width of a small cavern, is mildly convex to them, as though it’s only one small section of a great circular barrier. The gleaming white face, twenty feet in diameter, is dead center to them, as if set to watch this very approach. The wall is dead black, giving no cues of depth, and the marble face is unnaturally clean, such a pure white that its features are hard to make out. The only thing that gives shape to the face are little black dots that slide across its cheeks, its forehead, its eyeballs.
The wall, they realize, is made of pure congealed Essence. And embedded into it, is the head of the Sister God Wlaqua.
Closer now. Wlaqua’s enormous white marble eyes dart back and forth, and its mouth opens. She lets out a terrible howl, filled with anguish, frustration and shame.
“Well, look at that,” says Grey Wolf. “It’s warning someone that we’re here.”
He casts indomitability on Kibi.
Dranko and Flicker move forward together, though it’s not clear how they might flank something set into a wall. The eyes swivel to watch them, and Wlaqua screams, “Gooooo baaaaaack!”
Magical energies blast outward from Wlaqua’s head, striking most of the Company. Morningstar’s mind status spell pings: something has tried to dominate Kibi, but failed. It pings again, as Dranko resists a feeblemind. Ernie is turned to stone. Grey Wolf resists a disintegrate but suffers minor burns. And Dranko… Dranko starts to caper and prance, struck by Otto’s Irresistible Dance.
“Flee for your lives!” screams Wlaqua. “Go back!”
“You’ve made a terrible mistake,” Morningstar says to Her. “We’re here to restore things.”
“Yes!” agrees Wlaqua, Her voice desperate. “You have to slay me, but you can’t! I’m a God!”
Aravis casts protection from spells upon Grey Wolf, Flicker, Morningstar and himself. Morningstar casts holy aura on everyone. Kibi uses break enchantment to restore Ernie to flesh, before quickening xorn movement and sinking into the ground.
Ernie (who felt his skin grow hard for a moment, but who must have resisted a petrification) casts mass doughy folk, giving all of his allies further protection.
“Can’t we circumvent you by finding another way through the wall?” he asks Wlaqua.
“They’ve placed me at the weak spot!” She screams. “It’s the way they went through. It’s the only way to…. Aughhhh!” She shrieks louder, as though some painful compelling force cut Her off, not wanting Her to say more.
Grey Wolf casts ironstorm, centered on Wlauqa’s head. Flicker runs forward, thinking Dranko is by his side. “Come on, Dranko, keep up! Can’t you… oh, for the Gods’ sake.”
“I’m sorry” Wlaqua screams. She erupts with another burst of magic energy. Flicker sags, struck by a potent energy drain. Ernie feels his own energy drain forced out of his own mind and cast back upon him, though – thanks to the Spell Resistance granted by Morningstar’s holy aura, he is unaffected by it. Aravis resists feeblemind and Ernie shrugs off hold monster. Dranko is stripped of his own highest level spell: cure serious wounds.
Aravis casts maze on Wlaqua. To all of their surprise, the Head vanishes. It doesn’t leave a hole behind, just more solid black oozing Essence. It seems that it’s not Wlaqua’s severed head that fights them, but merely her sliced-off face.
The Company moves forward, but Wlaqua soon reappears. Even in death, the Sister God radiates a furious power that competes with the evil of the wall of Essence. They’re not sure they have the wherewithal to harm Her, and eventually Her magical blasts will prove too much for them.
They need help, and Morningstar knows how to summon it. She casts miracle. “Yavin!” she shouts. “We face your Sister. She is insane. We require your assistance.”
There is a ripple of power in front of Morningstar, so strong that the ground shakes and the air ripples, though the Black Wall doesn’t react at all. A being appears in front of Morningstar, a twenty foot black marble giantess holding a black sword.
It is the Sister God Yavin, and She is dead. Her black body is riddled with holes, and large pieces have been hacked out of Her, leaving weeping wounds. One of her eyes has been gouged out, and the gap where it once was goes nearly all the way through her head.
“Sister!” wails Wlaqua. “I killed you, and I’m sorry!”
“I am sorry too,” says Yavin. “But it appears I have been given another chance to set things right. You were very, very foolish, Sister. You knew what you were dealing with. Are you at all surprised?”
“Have mercy, Sister!” screams Wlaqua.
Yavin looks down upon Morningstar. “You have brought me back from the Necroplis of Naslund,” she says, her voice powerful but underscored with cracks. “My time here is very short. What would have me do?”
“When You go back, take Your sister with You,” says Morningstar.
“I cannot. She can only go if She is dead, but the Adversary’s foul power keeps Her alive.”
“Then we need to get through this wall,” says Morningstar. “Right where Your Sister is.”
Yavin understands. She raises her enormous black sword. “I take no pleasure in this,” She says to Wlaqua. And the Sister God Yavin, who once resolved conflicts peacefully but who in death is freed from that tenet, takes a mighty swing at Wlaqua’s head. A large chunk of white marble is knocked free from Her cheek, and it lands on the ground with a heavy thud. More, a spider-web of cracks appears, running through the entire Head, and it no longer radiates its aura of indomitability.
Yavin steps back and motions to Her sister, while Wlaqua screams in pain.
Kibi casts cone of cold, and it clearly damages the Head. Aravis casts a maximized chain lightning into the ironstorm and Wlaqua screams again.
“Let me introduce you to Ell.” Morningstar closes, quickens divine power, and strikes once with Ell’s Will. It knocks another piece out Wlaqua’s head. “It hurts, it hurts!” She cries, and though Her pain is genuine, the Company thinks Her voice also sounds almost encouraging, as though She wants them to hurry and make an end of Her.
Dranko strikes with his whip, and Grey Wolf dissolves most of Wlaqua’s nose with a acid orb. The black spots on Wlaqua’s face roil, and sympathetic lesions burst out on Yavin’s dead countenance.
“I’m sorry!” Wlaqua shrieks. “It’s not me that’s doing i!”
“It is you, Sister,” says Yavin. “You made this happen, and now you are paying the price of it.”
Once more Wlqaua unleashes magical energies on her attackers. Aravis is set to dancing, and Flicker is struck blind, but everyone else resists the various effects.
Dranko lines up his whip strikes more carefully this time, and connects twice, knocking a hole straight through Her cheek. They can see the Black Wall behind it.
Kibi pops up from the ground and casts greater dispel magic on Aravis, curing him of his unwanted disposition to tango. Aravis immediately casts disintegrate, and the Head fails to resist. The entire thing flashes and becomes a gritty white powder, falling to the ground like a bucket of white sand upended by a giant.
“I’m sorry, Milady,” says Dranko to Yavin.
“Thank You for Your help,” adds Ernie.
“You are welcome,” says Yavin, “but this is no longer my place.” She nods, and vanishes.
…to be continued…
RangerWickett
Legend
I'm a fan of Farazil.
Things like this are why I have been reading this story for over a decade, and why I will come back and read it again, years from now. Thank you, Sagiro.
Bits like this and "I. Am. WROTH." and the arrival of Elder from Piratecat's story hour are remarkable, just for showing the length of time a plot hook can dangle before catching the perfect fish.
Speaking of, when is PC finishing his story?
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Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 393
The End
Kibilhathur Bimson, child of Gela, child of Cranchus. You are still the Opener. The splinter has encased itself, I and it crying out together. It must be you who cracks its shell. Bless it with its lover’s kiss, the Watcher’s hour come, and together we will cleanse Abernia.
It was years ago that Kibi had that dream, and now it is about to come true.
The Shell is before him, a wall of pure Essence. If not for Ernie’s Ward of Drosh, he and all the others would be physically blasted backward by its presence, their minds crushed by its innate malice.
“I bet they’re waiting right on the other side, to kill us as soon as we’re through,” says Dranko. Maybe they should send the linnorm in first?
Kibi feels a certainty that his ability to bend reality will not work on the other side of this barrier, and so he uses that ability for the third and final time. He requests of the world that he and his allies be fully restored to perfect health, with a full day’s complement of spells at the ready. And the world assents, sending its power rumbling up through the Company, infusing them, refreshing, strengthening.
The Wall stands implacable, unimpressed.
Dranko lights his cigar one final time. “Do not become,” warns the smoke.
Kibi draws the Watcher’s Kiss, fragment of the blade that Uthol Inga once used to stab the Adversary in the back. Everything save the golden blade fades into a muted grayscale. Then, only because it brings him comfort when he’s about to do something risky, he puts on his helmet of water breathing. He can feel the solid stone beneath his feet, the Earth Magic of Abernia bolstering his resolve.
“Let’s get this done,” he says, and brings down the Watcher’s Kiss in a diagonal slash, slicing the Wall where Wlaqua’s head had been. The shell is nearly a foot thick, and Kibi’s hands almost come into contact with hit. But where the blade touches the Essence, the wall parts, the edges of the cut curling away and smoking like burning paper. The hole widens to a ragged opening big enough for them to fit through. Kibi raises the sword aloft, a smile on his face for just a second, before evil washes out from beyond the opening like a hurricane blast, knocking them all a step backward. Even with the Ward of Drosh present, they can feel its sting.
Aravis vanishes. Everyone gasps. Then he returns, clutching his head.
“Belshikun had one more vision he wanted me to see, before we go in,” he says.
”I have decided to show you something of a different nature, an encounter that happened many months ago, and not on the surface of Abernia. I may be overstepping my bounds by sharing it with you.”
Belshikun vanishes, and your perspective changes, and you observe:
*
“It has to be done,” she says. “There’s no other choice, and we both know it.”
Two figures sit at a simple wooden table, in simple wooden chairs. She is tall, thin, imperial, wearing golden robes and a crown of coherent light. He is not quite as tall, and his clothes are beggar’s clothes, though with golden trim, and on his chest is a sapphire pin cut in the shape of a lightning bolt.
They are Corilayna and Laramon, Deities of Fortune, and they are here to gamble.
“Yes, we both know it,” says Laramon. “I can see where things are headed as well as you. Though if you had a shred of honor, you’d do it yourself with no games. You brought him here, after all.”
Corilayna waves her hand dismissively. “No. We fled here, and you accepted us, eventually. The Adversary’s rebirth on Abernia is all of our problem. There’s only going to be one chance to put things to rights, and as things stand now, that chance will fail.”
“You speak, of course, of the mortals chosen by Abernia,” says Laramon, steepling his fingers. “Alander’s so-called chosen. You’d think if the world wanted to save itself, it wouldn’t need us to take such drastic measures.”
“Who knows?” says Corilayna. “Maybe the world has already taken us into account? Either way, Abernia’s band of precocious mortal misfits, at this very moment, doesn’t stand a chance. The wizard Abernathy may have heard the world whispering their names, but all of the recursively-derived prophecies in the world won’t do them any good as things stand now. Even if they find a way beneath the Barrier, the journey they must make is too long, too dangerous, and too improbable.”
“Yes,” says Laramon with a sigh. “And that’s why we’re here. They’ll need a thumb on the scale just to have a prayer. And even then, it won’t be enough by itself. They’ll have to be smart, and resourceful, and powerful, in addition to being absurdly lucky, especially as regards the confluence of far-separated events. But of course our thumbs aren’t allowed where they’re going.”
“And so we come to this,” says Corilayna. “They’re going to need good fortune, and lots of it. We could make them a magic lucky trinket the conventional way, but even that wouldn’t be powerful enough. Only one thing will be enough.”
They stare at one another across the table for a good long while.
“Well, we can’t use dice,” Laramon says eventually. “I don’t trust you.”
Corilayna smiles. “And we can’t use a coin. I don’t trust you either.”
“How about a roulette wheel?” Laramon suggests. “Neither one of us will be able to cheat on that without the other knowing.”
“Fine. We’ll manifest one jointly.”
Seconds later a beautiful gaming wheel appears on the table, crafted of mithril and diamond. There are no numbers on the spaces. Every other slot is black jet, etched with a gleaming red die standing on one corner, the holy symbol of Corilayna. The remaining spaces are polished ruby, each inscribed with a black lightning bolt inside a coin, the symbol of Laramon. The ball is a perfect white pearl.
For long minutes they do nothing but stare intently at the wheel, expressions of grim concentration on their faces. Then Corilayna looks up. “I’m satisfied.”
“I am as well,” says Laramon.
“Good.” Corilayna smiles. “I have my token. Do you have yours?”
“Of course.”
“Then we will spin the wheel, and let fortune dictate our fates, as is fitting.”
Through some unknown medium, one that must have been acceptable to both parties, the wheel begins to spin. Both Deities of Luck watch intently as the wheel turns and the pearl glides around the edge. After an exquisitely tense minute the ball drops and bounces several times before coming to rest.
It sits in a red slot.
Laramon smiles. “I win, it seems.”
Corilayna stares at the wheel. “Yes. Yes, it does look that way.”
Again, moments of silence across the table.
“There will be local fluctuations on Abernia,” says Corilayna, keeping her expression neutral. “Luck is going to go haywire for a while. No one is going to know what to make of it. When they figure out I’m gone, my priesthood will probably assume I’ve fled with my tail between my legs, just like Drosh did.”
Laramon studiously says nothing.
“It would be best if they don’t know what it is, at least in the short term,” she adds. “Put it somewhere they’ll find it, and enchant it so they won’t lose it. Goodness knows they’ve misplaced enough magical objects in their short careers. Now. I don’t see any reason to delay.”
Laramon produces his token, a jade clover with his symbol – a lightning bolt on a coin – inscribed on each leaf. He places it on the table.
Corilayna lets out a long breath, and closes her eyes.
“Goodbye,” she whispers. And then she dies. All of her divine life energy is immediately channeled into the clover, until it glows like a green fireball. After a moment, when the last of her Godly force has been contained in Laramon’s token, Corilayna’s body turns to vapors, disperses, and vanishes. Laramon is left alone in the room.
He takes a silver coin from his pocket, and flips it into the air, letting it land on the table. It bounces, wobbles, and comes to rest standing on its smooth, thin edge.
He stays in his chair for a long time after that, fingertips pressed to his lips.
“You did have honor, after all,” he says at last. “Let’s hope it’s enough.” He stands and puts the jade clover into a pocket of his shirt.
Morningstar gulps and reaches into her pocket. Her fingers close around Laramon’s Jade Clover, and she realizes that her earlier guess was nearly on the mark. For months she has been carrying the full Divine power of Corilayna in the lining of her robe!
Ahead of them stretches a black tunnel like a diseased throat, its walls an even mingling of stone and Essence. It is repulsive in every sense.
“And thus begins possibly the last journey we will ever make,” says Aravis.
“Well, I couldn’t ask for better company,” says Ernie. The others nod quietly.
Ernie goes first, wearing the Ward of Drosh around his neck. There are no light motes in here, but darkvision suffices. They make slow progress, through a place so stifling and sickening, it takes all of their nerve and resolve not to turn back, or just lie down and curl into a ball.
They cast a few spells as they go, protecting themselves from spells, from various energy types. Morningstar, seen as the most indispensable if they end up fighting something, gets a mind blank.
The tunnel is the embodiment of black despair. With each step, they realize more certainly that something has gone wrong. This can’t be right, can’t be where they are meant to be. Nothing they have done heretofore could possibly matter.
In Morningstar’s pocket, Laramon’s Jade Clover suddenly becomes so hot, it burns her skin through the cloth of her robe. At the same moment a small ball of orange flame appears, glowing in the darkness of this accursed tunnel. Even as the Company stares at it, still wondering what it is, it expands rapidly into a fiery oval ring, like the frame of a full length mirror that has caught fire.
“There!” shouts a voice. “I did it! Go now before it closes! Go, go!”
The voice sounds familiar, but no one can place it right away.
A man steps through the mirror. It’s Cashbox Jack, one of the ones who helped the Company survive in the Lightless Room of Het Branoi. Close on his heels are Kiro, the dwarven cleric, and the sorcerer Ox. They stumble into the tunnel, gasping in horror at their surroundings.
But more are coming. Something like a lobster claw sticks through the portal, followed by the rest of an iron barrel-like contraption. It seems that Aristus, from the Eye of the Storm, finally finished building his Apparatus.
And then Yoba steps through. She rushes forward, heedless of the doom she has stepped into, and embraces Ernie in a fierce hug. “I know you said you’d come back,” she whispers in his ear. “That’s how I knew it would be okay. I’ll just come back with you.”
But Yoba is not the last to come through the burning portal. One more person emerges: Kay Olafsen, one of the original seven summoned to Abernathy’s tower all those years ago. Kay, who was lost in Het Branoi, her elemental nature unable to exist in a place created by an Eye of Moirel. As soon as she is through, the portal closes, leaving behind a last breath of heat.
“The mystic Peralta saw you’d need help,” says Yoba. “Her ‘Seeing Flame’ told her your entire world was in mortal danger. She contacted as many of us as she could with sendings, and told us we could return the favor you did for us. She’s been trying to open a portal for weeks; this place is hard to reach!”
“Of course we all said yes,” says Cashbox Jack. “And besides, we figured after the last place we helped you out of, how could this be any worse?”
The Company shakes hands, utters words of thanks, and embraces Kay. For Kay’s part, she is just as happy to see them alive. “I wasn’t with you,” she explains, “but I was with other yous. And the other yous kept dying.”
They quickly bring all the newcomers up to speed, explaining how dire are the straits they are in, and making some quick introductions. No one flinches at learning there is likely no return from here, win or lose.
As the expanded group prepares to continue their final journey, there is a sound.
Gods, the sound.
It is a sound that pierces their souls to the core, like a great bell shattered by the force of its ring. It is a sound of pure despair. It is the sound of the world ending.
The Essence-infused rock of the floor starts to boil and bubble like the surface of a fetid swamp. The walls pulse and undulate like a great black esophagus about to vomit them into hell. Kibi feels all the stone of the world cry out in pain, and a terror floods down the tunnel like water. Terror, and defeat.
They have failed. Yoba weeps, and Cashbox Jack sinks to his knees.
And then, the Voice. It is a Voice that would make Tapheon sound like an archangel. It carries such malice and power, just hearing it causes them pain like nothing they have ever felt.
“I am here, at last an in full,” says the Voice. “I sense you, surface dwellers of this pitiful rock. Come here where I can look upon you. And be humbled that you are my first victims… the first of millions.”
None of them can move, or act. Just thinking is an agony. The Adversary has arrived, and his Voice pollutes them. They should have done something different, something they didn’t think of, something hidden among all the hints and clues and prophecies.
But they missed it, and now it is too late. They have failed.
And then they are teleported, as the laws of the Underdark that should prevent this are harshly violated by the Adversary. Laramon’s Jade Clover melts and vanishes in a puff of metallic steam. Now they are standing in an enormous cavern, the floor of which is worked smooth and inlaid with large black obsidian circles. Equations and lines are scrawled everywhere, some of them hundreds of feet across.
High above them, protruding from the eastern wall, are four deep purple fingers, each as long as the Greenhouse is tall. The thumb, if there is one, would be under the floor.
Standing in the very center of the cavern, in the centermost of the inlaid black circles, hundreds of feet tall, is the Adversary. His skin is purpled iron. One hand grips a black sword; the other ends in a stump. The failed heroes are scattered around Him, apart from one another. They cannot move, but the Adversary has arranged that each of their heads is tilted up, where they can look at Him, see His glory, and know that they could not prevent His arrival. His very presence would be annihilating their souls if not for the presence of the Ward of Drosh. But even with it, their souls are crumbling. They are hardly aware of three other figures in the room, smiling, standing in smaller black circles on the floor.
With his last shreds of consciousness, Kibi realizes that the cavern in which they stand was not, until just now, large enough to contain the Adversary’s physical form. His arrival wrenched the stone away, altering it, changing its nature, to make room for Him. Now He is standing in something akin to a great bell jar. His arrogance, his exultation in victory, is crushing. With their last fleeting bits of thought and sanity, each of the Company is left to wonder what they might have done differently, how they could have prevented this.
But they didn’t.
And they have lost.
…The End.
The End
Kibilhathur Bimson, child of Gela, child of Cranchus. You are still the Opener. The splinter has encased itself, I and it crying out together. It must be you who cracks its shell. Bless it with its lover’s kiss, the Watcher’s hour come, and together we will cleanse Abernia.
It was years ago that Kibi had that dream, and now it is about to come true.
The Shell is before him, a wall of pure Essence. If not for Ernie’s Ward of Drosh, he and all the others would be physically blasted backward by its presence, their minds crushed by its innate malice.
“I bet they’re waiting right on the other side, to kill us as soon as we’re through,” says Dranko. Maybe they should send the linnorm in first?
Kibi feels a certainty that his ability to bend reality will not work on the other side of this barrier, and so he uses that ability for the third and final time. He requests of the world that he and his allies be fully restored to perfect health, with a full day’s complement of spells at the ready. And the world assents, sending its power rumbling up through the Company, infusing them, refreshing, strengthening.
The Wall stands implacable, unimpressed.
Dranko lights his cigar one final time. “Do not become,” warns the smoke.
Kibi draws the Watcher’s Kiss, fragment of the blade that Uthol Inga once used to stab the Adversary in the back. Everything save the golden blade fades into a muted grayscale. Then, only because it brings him comfort when he’s about to do something risky, he puts on his helmet of water breathing. He can feel the solid stone beneath his feet, the Earth Magic of Abernia bolstering his resolve.
“Let’s get this done,” he says, and brings down the Watcher’s Kiss in a diagonal slash, slicing the Wall where Wlaqua’s head had been. The shell is nearly a foot thick, and Kibi’s hands almost come into contact with hit. But where the blade touches the Essence, the wall parts, the edges of the cut curling away and smoking like burning paper. The hole widens to a ragged opening big enough for them to fit through. Kibi raises the sword aloft, a smile on his face for just a second, before evil washes out from beyond the opening like a hurricane blast, knocking them all a step backward. Even with the Ward of Drosh present, they can feel its sting.
Aravis vanishes. Everyone gasps. Then he returns, clutching his head.
“Belshikun had one more vision he wanted me to see, before we go in,” he says.
”I have decided to show you something of a different nature, an encounter that happened many months ago, and not on the surface of Abernia. I may be overstepping my bounds by sharing it with you.”
Belshikun vanishes, and your perspective changes, and you observe:
*
“It has to be done,” she says. “There’s no other choice, and we both know it.”
Two figures sit at a simple wooden table, in simple wooden chairs. She is tall, thin, imperial, wearing golden robes and a crown of coherent light. He is not quite as tall, and his clothes are beggar’s clothes, though with golden trim, and on his chest is a sapphire pin cut in the shape of a lightning bolt.
They are Corilayna and Laramon, Deities of Fortune, and they are here to gamble.
“Yes, we both know it,” says Laramon. “I can see where things are headed as well as you. Though if you had a shred of honor, you’d do it yourself with no games. You brought him here, after all.”
Corilayna waves her hand dismissively. “No. We fled here, and you accepted us, eventually. The Adversary’s rebirth on Abernia is all of our problem. There’s only going to be one chance to put things to rights, and as things stand now, that chance will fail.”
“You speak, of course, of the mortals chosen by Abernia,” says Laramon, steepling his fingers. “Alander’s so-called chosen. You’d think if the world wanted to save itself, it wouldn’t need us to take such drastic measures.”
“Who knows?” says Corilayna. “Maybe the world has already taken us into account? Either way, Abernia’s band of precocious mortal misfits, at this very moment, doesn’t stand a chance. The wizard Abernathy may have heard the world whispering their names, but all of the recursively-derived prophecies in the world won’t do them any good as things stand now. Even if they find a way beneath the Barrier, the journey they must make is too long, too dangerous, and too improbable.”
“Yes,” says Laramon with a sigh. “And that’s why we’re here. They’ll need a thumb on the scale just to have a prayer. And even then, it won’t be enough by itself. They’ll have to be smart, and resourceful, and powerful, in addition to being absurdly lucky, especially as regards the confluence of far-separated events. But of course our thumbs aren’t allowed where they’re going.”
“And so we come to this,” says Corilayna. “They’re going to need good fortune, and lots of it. We could make them a magic lucky trinket the conventional way, but even that wouldn’t be powerful enough. Only one thing will be enough.”
They stare at one another across the table for a good long while.
“Well, we can’t use dice,” Laramon says eventually. “I don’t trust you.”
Corilayna smiles. “And we can’t use a coin. I don’t trust you either.”
“How about a roulette wheel?” Laramon suggests. “Neither one of us will be able to cheat on that without the other knowing.”
“Fine. We’ll manifest one jointly.”
Seconds later a beautiful gaming wheel appears on the table, crafted of mithril and diamond. There are no numbers on the spaces. Every other slot is black jet, etched with a gleaming red die standing on one corner, the holy symbol of Corilayna. The remaining spaces are polished ruby, each inscribed with a black lightning bolt inside a coin, the symbol of Laramon. The ball is a perfect white pearl.
For long minutes they do nothing but stare intently at the wheel, expressions of grim concentration on their faces. Then Corilayna looks up. “I’m satisfied.”
“I am as well,” says Laramon.
“Good.” Corilayna smiles. “I have my token. Do you have yours?”
“Of course.”
“Then we will spin the wheel, and let fortune dictate our fates, as is fitting.”
Through some unknown medium, one that must have been acceptable to both parties, the wheel begins to spin. Both Deities of Luck watch intently as the wheel turns and the pearl glides around the edge. After an exquisitely tense minute the ball drops and bounces several times before coming to rest.
It sits in a red slot.
Laramon smiles. “I win, it seems.”
Corilayna stares at the wheel. “Yes. Yes, it does look that way.”
Again, moments of silence across the table.
“There will be local fluctuations on Abernia,” says Corilayna, keeping her expression neutral. “Luck is going to go haywire for a while. No one is going to know what to make of it. When they figure out I’m gone, my priesthood will probably assume I’ve fled with my tail between my legs, just like Drosh did.”
Laramon studiously says nothing.
“It would be best if they don’t know what it is, at least in the short term,” she adds. “Put it somewhere they’ll find it, and enchant it so they won’t lose it. Goodness knows they’ve misplaced enough magical objects in their short careers. Now. I don’t see any reason to delay.”
Laramon produces his token, a jade clover with his symbol – a lightning bolt on a coin – inscribed on each leaf. He places it on the table.
Corilayna lets out a long breath, and closes her eyes.
“Goodbye,” she whispers. And then she dies. All of her divine life energy is immediately channeled into the clover, until it glows like a green fireball. After a moment, when the last of her Godly force has been contained in Laramon’s token, Corilayna’s body turns to vapors, disperses, and vanishes. Laramon is left alone in the room.
He takes a silver coin from his pocket, and flips it into the air, letting it land on the table. It bounces, wobbles, and comes to rest standing on its smooth, thin edge.
He stays in his chair for a long time after that, fingertips pressed to his lips.
“You did have honor, after all,” he says at last. “Let’s hope it’s enough.” He stands and puts the jade clover into a pocket of his shirt.
Morningstar gulps and reaches into her pocket. Her fingers close around Laramon’s Jade Clover, and she realizes that her earlier guess was nearly on the mark. For months she has been carrying the full Divine power of Corilayna in the lining of her robe!
Ahead of them stretches a black tunnel like a diseased throat, its walls an even mingling of stone and Essence. It is repulsive in every sense.
“And thus begins possibly the last journey we will ever make,” says Aravis.
“Well, I couldn’t ask for better company,” says Ernie. The others nod quietly.
Ernie goes first, wearing the Ward of Drosh around his neck. There are no light motes in here, but darkvision suffices. They make slow progress, through a place so stifling and sickening, it takes all of their nerve and resolve not to turn back, or just lie down and curl into a ball.
They cast a few spells as they go, protecting themselves from spells, from various energy types. Morningstar, seen as the most indispensable if they end up fighting something, gets a mind blank.
The tunnel is the embodiment of black despair. With each step, they realize more certainly that something has gone wrong. This can’t be right, can’t be where they are meant to be. Nothing they have done heretofore could possibly matter.
In Morningstar’s pocket, Laramon’s Jade Clover suddenly becomes so hot, it burns her skin through the cloth of her robe. At the same moment a small ball of orange flame appears, glowing in the darkness of this accursed tunnel. Even as the Company stares at it, still wondering what it is, it expands rapidly into a fiery oval ring, like the frame of a full length mirror that has caught fire.
“There!” shouts a voice. “I did it! Go now before it closes! Go, go!”
The voice sounds familiar, but no one can place it right away.
A man steps through the mirror. It’s Cashbox Jack, one of the ones who helped the Company survive in the Lightless Room of Het Branoi. Close on his heels are Kiro, the dwarven cleric, and the sorcerer Ox. They stumble into the tunnel, gasping in horror at their surroundings.
But more are coming. Something like a lobster claw sticks through the portal, followed by the rest of an iron barrel-like contraption. It seems that Aristus, from the Eye of the Storm, finally finished building his Apparatus.
And then Yoba steps through. She rushes forward, heedless of the doom she has stepped into, and embraces Ernie in a fierce hug. “I know you said you’d come back,” she whispers in his ear. “That’s how I knew it would be okay. I’ll just come back with you.”
But Yoba is not the last to come through the burning portal. One more person emerges: Kay Olafsen, one of the original seven summoned to Abernathy’s tower all those years ago. Kay, who was lost in Het Branoi, her elemental nature unable to exist in a place created by an Eye of Moirel. As soon as she is through, the portal closes, leaving behind a last breath of heat.
“The mystic Peralta saw you’d need help,” says Yoba. “Her ‘Seeing Flame’ told her your entire world was in mortal danger. She contacted as many of us as she could with sendings, and told us we could return the favor you did for us. She’s been trying to open a portal for weeks; this place is hard to reach!”
“Of course we all said yes,” says Cashbox Jack. “And besides, we figured after the last place we helped you out of, how could this be any worse?”
The Company shakes hands, utters words of thanks, and embraces Kay. For Kay’s part, she is just as happy to see them alive. “I wasn’t with you,” she explains, “but I was with other yous. And the other yous kept dying.”
They quickly bring all the newcomers up to speed, explaining how dire are the straits they are in, and making some quick introductions. No one flinches at learning there is likely no return from here, win or lose.
As the expanded group prepares to continue their final journey, there is a sound.
Gods, the sound.
It is a sound that pierces their souls to the core, like a great bell shattered by the force of its ring. It is a sound of pure despair. It is the sound of the world ending.
The Essence-infused rock of the floor starts to boil and bubble like the surface of a fetid swamp. The walls pulse and undulate like a great black esophagus about to vomit them into hell. Kibi feels all the stone of the world cry out in pain, and a terror floods down the tunnel like water. Terror, and defeat.
They have failed. Yoba weeps, and Cashbox Jack sinks to his knees.
And then, the Voice. It is a Voice that would make Tapheon sound like an archangel. It carries such malice and power, just hearing it causes them pain like nothing they have ever felt.
“I am here, at last an in full,” says the Voice. “I sense you, surface dwellers of this pitiful rock. Come here where I can look upon you. And be humbled that you are my first victims… the first of millions.”
None of them can move, or act. Just thinking is an agony. The Adversary has arrived, and his Voice pollutes them. They should have done something different, something they didn’t think of, something hidden among all the hints and clues and prophecies.
But they missed it, and now it is too late. They have failed.
And then they are teleported, as the laws of the Underdark that should prevent this are harshly violated by the Adversary. Laramon’s Jade Clover melts and vanishes in a puff of metallic steam. Now they are standing in an enormous cavern, the floor of which is worked smooth and inlaid with large black obsidian circles. Equations and lines are scrawled everywhere, some of them hundreds of feet across.
High above them, protruding from the eastern wall, are four deep purple fingers, each as long as the Greenhouse is tall. The thumb, if there is one, would be under the floor.
Standing in the very center of the cavern, in the centermost of the inlaid black circles, hundreds of feet tall, is the Adversary. His skin is purpled iron. One hand grips a black sword; the other ends in a stump. The failed heroes are scattered around Him, apart from one another. They cannot move, but the Adversary has arranged that each of their heads is tilted up, where they can look at Him, see His glory, and know that they could not prevent His arrival. His very presence would be annihilating their souls if not for the presence of the Ward of Drosh. But even with it, their souls are crumbling. They are hardly aware of three other figures in the room, smiling, standing in smaller black circles on the floor.
With his last shreds of consciousness, Kibi realizes that the cavern in which they stand was not, until just now, large enough to contain the Adversary’s physical form. His arrival wrenched the stone away, altering it, changing its nature, to make room for Him. Now He is standing in something akin to a great bell jar. His arrogance, his exultation in victory, is crushing. With their last fleeting bits of thought and sanity, each of the Company is left to wonder what they might have done differently, how they could have prevented this.
But they didn’t.
And they have lost.
…The End.
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