Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)

[Lazybones]

Mid-Week Update time... and yes, I have a big cliffhanger in the wings for Friday.

* * * * *

Chapter 443

A simple question, yet it opened a great many uncertainties.

“We cannot do any more,” Dana said. “We have to leave this place, return with our dead to Faerûn… and then, do what we can.”

“Just leave him here?” Beorna said, with surprise.

“There is nothing more we can do,” Lok said. “Dana is right.”

“He doesn’t look so tough… Arun’s blade through his back should solve our problem, demon prince or no.”

“I do not think that would be advisable,” Cal said. “But this may require further deliberation. There are two things that we need to remember. The first is that if we do depart now, we may not get another chance to stand where we stand now. The second is the response we received to Dana’s commune.”

“If we do nothing to intervene, then Adimarchus escapes his prison,” Dana said, nodding as she recalled the information she’d received in her last bonding with Selûne.

“Um… should we be talking about this in front of him?” Mole asked. “He’s not doing anything, but he’s still really creeping me out.”

“There is still the fate of the prisoners here, including the Cagewrights, to consider as well,” Arun said. “What is it that you propose, Cal?”

The gnome did not respond for a moment, rubbing his chin with one hand. “We need more guidance,” he said. “And to study this situation further. At the moment we seem to be at a détente, but that could change at any moment.”

“Including the return of our host,” Lok said.

“I have not forgotten that possibility.”

“Let him come,” Dana said.

“I agree with your sentiment, Dana, but getting ourselves killed or enslaved is not going to help Benzan. We shall not forget him; this I swear. But as to… the master of this prison… it’s far more likely that he would send emissaries, rather than come in person. To be honest, I am more than a little surprised that we have not heard from him already.”

“All the more reason to leave,” Dana said.

“I think I see what you are getting at,” Arun said. “We can raise Dannel here, and cast the spells you need to learn more, without returning to Faerûn.”

“Not without rest,” Dana said. “And this is not my idea of a campsite…”

“I can erect a private sanctum here, in this very room,” Cal said. “It blocks sound and vision, both mundane and the sort accessed through scrying magic. I can sculpt its confines to suit our exact preferences. We would have to post a rotating watch on the exterior, in order to detect any threats before they became apparent.”

“If Hodge were here, I believe he would make some comment about gnomes all being crazy,” Arun said. “Settle down to share a quiet night’s rest with a demon prince who’s cage may be more precarious than we know.”

“We’re all crazy, we who choose this life,” Cal noted simply.

“What about him?” Beorna said, indicating the prisoner.

“Well, he isn’t going anywhere,” Cal said. “And while our dreams may not be placid, I suspect that his cage separates him from the physical world, at least while he is in it. I will have to make a more detailed analysis, but I believe that even your threatened sword thrust would have no effect upon him, so long as the cage is intact.”

“This is nuts,” Dana said. “But as long as we can find a way to hurt Graz’zt, then I am in.”

 

[Solarious]

Mid-Week Update time... and yes, I have a big cliffhanger in the wings for Friday.

Oh, we expect nothing less of a Friday Cliffhanger from the Cliffhanger King himself! Oh, please, do go on!

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 444

Arun felt tired. As wearying as the physical exhaustion that days of battles and almost constant battering was the emotion drain inflicted by the constant noise of suffering that filled Skullrot. And on top of that was the presence of the entity trapped… securely?... in his cage on the far side of the room.

One mere step offered solace; to his left as he walked his sentry path was the cloudy white border of Cal’s private sanctum. Inside, he knew, Lok was his second on watch. The companions had agreed that they’d hold double watches, with one person inside, one just outside of the sanctum. Those inside could see out, but no sound penetrated the outer border of the spell effect, forcing them to keep someone on post outside lest they miss the sounds of an approaching enemy. Prior to their rest Cal had laid an alarm at the main entrance to the citadel below as well, but none of them wanted to take any chances, not here, not with the dangling cage and its inhabitant as a constant reminder of what was at stake.

Arun cracked his back, twisted his arms to loosen them, and kept walking. Lok would spell him after a while; despite their experience one could not help but have their senses dulled by the constant cries of Skullrot’s mad inhabitants. The paladin had already inwardly decided that he would not wake Beorna for the second watch; the templar needed her rest, especially for the spells that she would be able to cast after a good night’s sleep. They’d already determined that Cal and Dana would sleep a full eight hours uninterrupted. Unfortunately that meant long shifts for the warriors.

Arun was used to long nights; during his training he’d spent several watches of twenty or more hours at the ramparts deep under the earth, below the Great Rift. Those had been lonely watches, with only the darkness to keep him company. Darkness that could contain goblins, orcs, or worse—foul abominations come up from the Underdark seeking warm flesh and hot blood to feast upon.

The paladin had found himself thinking of his homeland more often of late. He’d accepted his exile, had come to grips with it… and he’d found a new place to call home, a place that had embraced him. In talking with Beorna there had been oblique mention of plans, of a future… nothing they’d wanted to put into concrete terms, not with the threat of obliteration a constant on this mission. But it was enough to know that there was hope, beyond all of the blood and evil and madness.

Despite all that, his thoughts drifted back. Maybe it was the solitude of this watch; even though his companions were just a few paces away, the barrier of Cal’s spell separated him from them, partitioned them off into a shadowy reality that was less real than the screams and cages and dreaming godling that were his companions this night.

Lok had not complained. The genasi was possessed of a calm fortitude that Arun found to be refreshing and reassuring. He was still suffering from the effects of the lichfiend’s energy drain; all the more reason for Dana to get her rest, to restore him before the effects of the spell took hold upon his soul and became permanent.

Arun reached the end of his circuit and turned back. As he did, his gaze stole back to the cage for the thousandth time. Adimarchus had not stirred, although occasionally he shifted between his two forms. Angel and demon. The juxtaposition spoke of a shattered mind, and from what Arun knew of the fallen creature’s tale there was a suffering beyond mere mortal comprehension trapped in that cage with the immortal lord.

He lowered his eyes and continued his patrol, but before he’d taken two steps in his circuit around the borders of the sanctum a sound, faint, drew his attention back around. At first he thought that the noise had come from the cage—his heart pounded even with that flickering suggestion—but then he realized that it had originated from the dark shaft below it, the one that opened onto a two-hundred foot drop to the blood-splattered floor of Skullrot below.

He moved quickly over to the edge of the opening, careful not to draw too close. He did not like heights, but liked even less the sounds he could just hear over the background noise of the citadel. A rumbling vibration, very faint, accompanied by a clatter of what might have been falling stone.

“What is it?” Lok asked, his body materializing through the edge of the sanctum. Arun didn’t answer, but they could both hear the loud sound that followed, a loud screech, something new, yet at the same time vaguely familiar.

“Wake the others!” Arun urged, edging forward and leaning out over the dark opening to get a look down. The pale red light that shone through the walls of the fortress wasn’t very good to see by, but when they’d returned to the ground level for Cal to cast his alarm spell, they’d left Dannel’s old torch, glowing with continual flame, in the eyesocket of one of the skulls that comprised the walls. The golden glow of the torch seemed wan and feeble in the great interior of the prison, but it was still somehow reassuring to see it far below them, flickering still.

Something drifted into view, appearing through a new gap the size of a house that had been blasted into the wall of the citadel, maybe thirty or forty feet above ground level. The source of the sounds, then; although there was only a faint hint of dust floating in the air, no evidence of an explosion or other forced entry. The intruder was little more than a vague outline in the weak light, but its size and shape were distinctive. Arun felt a sickening twist in his gut as recognition dawned.

“What is it?” Mole asked, appearing through the edge of the sanctum a few moments before the others, Beorna holding her armor in one hand, and her bare sword in the other.

Arun turned to face them. That his report would be bad was evident on his face even before he spoke.

“It’s Vhalantru… the beholder’s back.”

 

[Sir Falke]

I´ve been following this SH almost since its beginning, and liked it a lot, although I too felt a little disapointed that of the original heroes so few remain and that the leading role has slowly shifted to the heroes of your previous SH, but, as this story hour is nearing its end, I wanted to de-lurk this time just to say:

THANK YOU, Lazybones

Your Storyhour if very well written, the characters are realy enjoyable and I really, really appreciate how frequently you update and continue this sh to its rightfull finale.

Well, time to lurk again... 'till the end of it.

 

[Lazybones]

Thank you, Sir Falke. I have often acknowledged that the only reason this SH has gone on as far and as long as it has is the great feedback I've been getting from readers.

I too felt a little disapointed that of the original heroes so few remain and that the leading role has slowly shifted to the heroes of your previous SH

Yeah, I didn't start out to write out Zenna and Hodge, but these stories sort of take on their own momentum after a while. I'd initially thought of the Travelers as the "veterans" and the Heroes of Cauldron as the "upstarts" (although the latter were high-level, they gained it all in less than a year of game-time), and intended to balance the attention each group got in the story. But the death of Zenna and capture of Benzan sort of shifted the attention more toward the Travelers. Plus the Heroes kept... well, dying (except Arun, much to Solarious's dismay). But don't worry, the Heroes will have a decisive role in the finale; they are the ones who started this thread, so it's only logical that it comes back to them.

as this story hour is nearing its end

Maybe, maybe not; I still have a few things that need resolution...

Story continues on Monday.

 

[Elemental]

“It’s Vhalantru… the beholder’s back.”

Vhalantru....the Jean Grey of beholders.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 445

Vhalantru’s mad cries were a reflection of the cacophony that built from the galleries of Skullrot as the beholder floated into the central hall of the citadel through the opening it had disintegrated in the wall. Its invasion of the fortress had taken it through part of a cell, releasing an insane slaad, but the chaotic outsider was now just a gory red carcass—most of a carcass, anyway—still half-tangled in what was left of its chains. The beholder’s eyestalks twisted as it scanned the interior for a moment, but then it began to rise, its body tilting until its burning central eye peered upward through the haze of smoke that issued from the empty socket.

“Oh no, not again,” Mole said, frozen with terror as that evil stare seemed to lock onto her.

“We are in no condition for a rematch with that thing,” Dana said.

“We can’t just let it have Adimarchus,” Beorna said, moving with grim efficiency as she slipped her heavy breastplate over her shoulders. Arun moved to help her.

“Is there anything we can drop on it?” Mole asked, but as she looked around she saw only their bedrolls, and the other things they had brought with them; there were no furnishings in the room save for the great cage and its inhabitant. Something must have shown in her face as she glanced back down the shaft, for Cal said to her, “Don’t even think about it!” Glancing over his shoulder at Beorna and Arun, he said, “We may need an escape route!”

Arun nodded, turning from fastening a buckle on Beorna’s armor and reaching, not for the holy avenger, but for the adamantine battleaxe he’d recovered from Shatterhorn. Dana had already proven that the walls of the citadel were not invincible, although the fact that they were two hundred feet above the ground might have given them pause, had it not been for the more pressing threat rising up from below.

Lok had unlimbered his bow and fired a holy arrow down the shaft at the beholder, but it was too dark to see if the shot had any effect.

“Careful, it’ll be in range in a moment…” Cal began.

But even as he spoke, multicolored rays of energy erupted from the beholder’s eyestalks, stabbing up through the shaft toward them. They had the advantage of range and the cover provided by the lip of the shaft, but that didn’t protect Lok from the first beam, which shot into his chest. The genasi staggered back but resisted the effects of the ray, which might have been disastrous if he’d succumbed to magical sleep while leaning over the edge of the shaft. A second beam lanced through the empty space where he’d been standing a moment before, and a third impacted the floor a few feet back from the shaft’s edge, missing them entirely.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as a segment of the floor suddenly vanished, disintegrated by the beholder’s eye ray. Doubly so since Cal had been standing there, and now found only empty space beneath his feet. Gravity took its inevitable hold, but even as the gnome started to fall Mole leapt across the shaft, her hand outstretched to snag hold of her uncle’s cloak. Her momentum carried her forward, just enough for her other hand to catch hold of the new edge of the shaft by the tips of her fingers. Cal dangled below her, one hand holding onto his cloak, the other holding a wand that he calmly aimed down at the beholder, blasting it with an acid arrow.

“You… need… to go… on a… diet!” Mole gasped, fighting to maintain her precarious hold.

“Hold on, Mole!” Dana said, directing the spiritual weapon she’d just conjured to harass the beholder, then diving to grab onto the gnome rogue’s wrist. Dana wasn’t particularly strong, but Arun was there a moment later, kneeling at the lip of the chasm to help her drag the two gnomes to safety.

“It’s still coming!” Cal warned. Lok had kept up his barrage, but was hit by another pair of beams in quick succession. While he’d avoided being disintegrated, turned to stone, or instantly killed, as he drew back from the edge of the precipice his labored movements did indicate that he’d been slowed by the beholder.

“If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them!” Dana said.

As soon as Arun had pulled her up, Mole had drawn back and dug deeply into her bag of holding. She found what she was looking for; a small wooden box that opened to reveal a number of lumpy canvas sacks stashed inside.

Sometimes the old favorites are the best, she thought, taking all three of the tanglefoot bags out and tossing the box aside. One must have had a tear or something, for the interior was hard and dried out, but the other two seemed okay.

She returned to the edge of the chasm. Beorna, she saw, was hacking at the outer wall of the chamber with her adamantine sword; the others had fallen back from the opening, apparently yielding that defensive position to the beholder, who seemed able to target its eye-beams with precision no matter how little of them was exposed to its searching eyes.

“Mole, what are you doing?” Cal asked.

“Just going to tangle it up a bit!” she replied. Then, before he could dissuade her, she lifted the bags and darted up to the edge of the opening.

The first thing she noticed was that the beholder looked a lot… bigger; it had managed to climb quite some distance up the shaft and now wasn’t more than sixty or seventy feet below. It literally was the size of a house—and one built for humans, not just the compact structures sized for gnomes that she remembered from certain neighborhoods back in Waterdeep. It had clearly been waiting for one of its enemies to reappear; for as soon as she saw it one of the fist-sized eyes atop the twisting eyestalks flashed, sending death her way.

“Woah!” she yelled, snapping her upper body back before her conscious mind could order her body to react. She dropped the tanglefoot bags, but that was the last thing on her mind as she saw the green ray lance inches past her face, stabbing upward, finally intersecting the chain that stretched between the top of Adimarchus’s cage, through the eyehole in the ceiling, and across the room to the heavy winch set into the far wall.

Oh, no, she thought, as the beam seeped into the chain, infusing six or seven of the heavy links with a green glow that lasted less than a heartbeat before they just… vanished.

Leaving the cage holding the imprisoned prince to plummet through the hole in the floor and down the shaft.

Mole would not have been who she was if she did not immediately snap back to the edge of the shaft, her eyes wide as she observed what transpired next. She saw the cage falling toward the beholder, which fired a blue ray at it seconds before it hit. The beam had no apparent effect upon Adimarchus’s prison, although it did leave a flickering blue glow around the bars of the cage, giving the whole of the construct an eerie corona that persisted even as the cage struck the beholder, driving it halfway down the depth of the shaft before Vhalantru twisted away and separated from it. The cage, still glowing with the afterimage of the beholder’s power, dropped like a stone the remaining seventy feet to hit the unyielding floor below with a resounding crash. The cage bounced into the air and to the side as if hurled away, rebounding off a nearby wall before landing again and rolling to a battered stop some distance away.

As Mole’s gaze drifted to the cage, she saw that the blue glow was gone. But even worse, it was empty, its crumpled door creaking faintly as it twisted on ruined hinges.

“Oh my gods…” Mole breathed.

Adimarchus lay on the ground, a black smear in the flickering light of the torch. This far away, he didn’t look all that different from a man, battered and tormented, the torchlight glistening on his bare ebon skin.

Then he stirred, and slowly, began to rise.

 

[CrusadeDave]

Awesome update!

Yet another great cliffhanger.

Any chance we could get an idea of what level everyone is, when Adimarchus rises? If everyone was level 16 when the parties merged, I'd have to guess that they're getting pretty close to 19 now.

 

[Lazybones]

Yet another great cliffhanger.

Any chance we could get an idea of what level everyone is, when Adimarchus rises? If everyone was level 16 when the parties merged, I'd have to guess that they're getting pretty close to 19 now.

Sure, I'll update the Rogues' Gallery thread. I had a party ECL of 18 going in to Asylum, although a number of people are slightly above or below that due to differing circumstances.

 

[Neverwinter Knight]

Adimarchus lay on the ground, a black smear in the flickering light of the torch. This far away, he didn’t look all that different from a man, battered and tormented, the torchlight glistening on his bare ebon skin.

Then he stirred, and slowly, began to rise.

Oh my...a Monday cliffhanger !!! And the party is not rested!

Alas, farewell heros. They do not have to wait for Grazzt to finish them off.