Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)

[Polynike]

You praise him eventhough he has yet to consent to your demand of the demise of Zenna ?!

credit where credit is due i dont like the zenna character but LB can write a damn good story hour. i still hold out in hope that one of the heroes gets it zenna, mole, dannel. hodge and arun are way cool and this new templar seems the buis as well

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 245

The sky was an ochre tapestry quickly darkening toward black when Zenna spotted the familiar gables of “The Drunken Morkoth” come into view around the bend in the avenue ahead. There were still a good number of people in the street, but the activity was muted, the citizens of the town exuding that generalized sense of anxiety and evasion that Zenna had felt like a palpable wave since she’d returned to the city.

“Patrol,” Dannel said quietly, beside her.

Zenna saw them coming, and also noted the way that the commoners moved quickly to get out of the way of the heavily armed band of the Watch as it made its way down the avenue. Zenna felt a momentary flashback of memory at the sight of the armored half-orc mercenaries that made up the bulk of the patrol; they were a bit too reminiscent of the orcs they had battled in the northern Alamirs for comfort. At least this wasn’t one of the “special” patrols; she remembered vividly how Arun had nearly had a fit when they’d seen an ogre serving in the Watch.

Yes, things had changed in Cauldron.

But as they reached the Morkoth, and entered the expansive common room through the wide double doors, some of the oppressiveness they’d felt out in the street slipped away. To be sure, the crowd was somewhat more muted than it had once been, but here was warmth, and conversation, and even the music of a fiddler in a back corner that was all but drowned out by the general din of the place. There were maybe fifty people here now, but as Zenna scanned the room, she didn’t see Mole or the dwarves.

“They’re probably in the back room,” Dannel said, leading her past the bar toward the low archway that opened onto the quieter chamber in the back of the inn.

Zenna and Mole had once let a room in the loft above the adjacent secondary building behind the Morkoth, but the owner had understandably rented it out to someone else in the months of their absence. The adventurers had since found rooms elsewhere in the city. It hadn’t been hard; a good number of people were leaving Cauldron, and with the obvious tension here Zenna expected to see more of an exodus with the end of summer.

The situation with Alek and Maavu had blown over, but the overall level of stress was still high in the city. While some of the tax increases that had spawned the riots had been eased, they’d been replaced by a series of smaller levies that had been implemented gradually. All of it was supposedly to support “security”, in the form of the mercenaries that had largely taken over the duties of the existing Watch. There was a big camp of them outside the city, Zenna had learned, and from what she’d heard it seemed to get a little bigger with each passing tenday.

Jenya had briefed them on the situation in the city, their first day back. Things had been mostly quiet in Cauldron, although there was a fair amount of grumbling, and occasional outbreaks of violence that were put down ruthlessly by the new Watch. At least monsters had stopped appearing in the city, although rumors continued to weave tales of terrible creatures that moved around in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.

It had been three days now, and they were starting to get a feel for the city again. Or rather, Mole and Dannel were; they reported to the others what they found when they gathered for supper each night at the Morkoth. Arun and Hodge spent much of their time at a dwarven tavern on Obsidian Avenue, although Mole had told Zenna that she’d heard that the dwarves were also helping out at the Lantern Street Orphanage, and doing some other small jobs of building repair in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. Zenna managed to establish a relationship with Vortimax Weer, an arcanist who ran Weer’s Elixirs, a small potion shop on Ash Avenue. In exchange for a few spells, and one of the scrolls she’d found in Vaprak’s Voice, the mage had agreed to lend her the use of his laboratory, to pursue some of the projects she’d been tossing around in her head of late. She’d already managed one successful creation, a vial filled with a silvery gel that could temporarily infuse a weapon with the properties of alchemical silver. The stuff would be very useful if they encountered another monstrosity like Tongueater, the were-baboon who’d taken over the Lucky Monkey soon after their arrival in Cauldron. She’d given the silversheen to Dannel, and was toying with a few ideas for some elixirs that could help Mole. Assuming she had the time to work on them; for some reason she’d felt a sense of anticipation building since she’d gotten up this morning, as if something important was coming, something that she couldn’t quite yet identify.

She frowned, and thought back to the words of the divination that she and Jenya had performed together yesterday evening. The two of them had combined their powers in an attempt to pierce the veil that Zenna was convinced concealed something that linked all of the recent events together... the abductions and the beholder, the attack on the Lucky Monkey, the cult of Triel Eldurast, the umber hulk rampage, and the troubles with Alek Tercival and the Chisel. Nidrama had spoken of great forces of evil and chaos, and Alek had warned them not to return to Cauldron, before his death. It was all part of a puzzle, and it confounded Zenna that she could not solve it.

Their divination had revealed the following verse, in response to Zenna’s question, “Who or what is behind the troubles facing Cauldron?”

Cages above and bones below
Death the door and magic the key
Knives but dust and souls the prize

“Ah, there they are,” Dannel said, drawing her out of her thoughts, gesturing toward a booth in one of the curtained alcoves that lined the back room of the inn.

But even as Zenna turned in that direction, someone bumped into her, and as she turned to apologize she found herself looking at Annah Taskerhill.

 

[ltclnlbrain]

Great update as usual. I did notice one mistake though:

Zenna managed to establish a relationship with Vortimax Weer, an arcanist who ran Weer’s Elixirs, a small potion shop on [street].

I think you forgot to put the name of the street at the end there.

Also, glad to see the Stormblades again.

 

[Lazybones]

Ah, thanks for the heads-up; I generally write these at work (shhh...) in between projects, and don't have my mags handy. I write them mostly from memory and check details when I get home. When I get to something that I can't recall I install a placeholder. Guess I'd better start using 20 point font for those.

* * * * *

Chapter 246

For a moment, Zenna was too surprised to do anything but stare. The young, beautiful noblewoman was the leader of the Stormblades, a rival band of adventurers who’d been a thorn in the collective sides of her and her companions since shortly after they’d arrived in Cauldron. They’d had a few ugly confrontations with members of the Stormblades, and the noble brats had taken credit—and a good percentage of the treasure—from some of the notable deeds they’d performed, such as breaking up the slaving ring of the half-dwarf Kazmojen and recovering magical wands of control water from the cult of Triel Eldurast.

But it did not look as though the recent months had been friendly to Annah Taskerhill. She was still attractive and exotic, her dark skin smooth and unblemished, her features formed as if cast by an inspired sculptor. But her eyes were troubled, and darker circles hung under them, wrinkles that Zenna knew all too well, the marks left by stress, loss, and pain. She was dressed in the same style that Zenna remembered—expensive fabrics, fashionably cut, in all, rich—but she noticed a few small unmended tears and other slight blemishes that contrasted jarringly with the unnaturally perfect appearance that the bard had worn on their last meeting.

The noblewoman recovered first. “Ah. I’d heard you were back in town,” she said, her voice flat and without emotion, although Zenna thought she saw a hint of the fire she’d remembered in her eyes. “I thought maybe you’d all died, but Cara insisted you’d abandoned Cauldron, and gone onto greener pastures.”

“No, we’re still here,” Zenna said.

Dannel stepped forward, forming a tight triangle between them. “I have heard that things have gone badly for you of late.”

Annah bristled. “If you’re referring to Todd’s death, yes, that counts as ‘gone badly.’ But you’d be making a mistake, if you were to count the Stormblades out so quickly.”

Todd... ah yes, that jerk, Zenna thought. Todd Vanderboren had reminded her of nothing more than a weasel, and their last meeting at the Cusp of Sunrise had been an acrimonious one. Mole had gotten two thousand gold pieces out of him there, she remembered, gambling for high stakes in a dramatic game of gemsnatcher.

But she held her tongue, and Dannel was quick to reply, “No, I didn’t mean it that way,” he said soothingly, in that annoying way he had of making your anger drain away like water through a sieve. “I only meant... well, we’ve come to understand how important some things are, and how you don’t really appreciate them until you lose them.”

Annah looked at him in surprise, but then nodded. Zenna could sense the barrier still between them, but was surprised to find herself feeling sympathetic toward the woman as she turned away.

“I have to go,” she said, heading back for the front room.

“Hey, did I miss something?” Mole said, coming over to join them. “The dwarves didn’t wait—oh, was that Annah Taskerhill?”

“Come on, or there won’t be any food left at all,” Dannel said, directing the two women toward the long booth where the dwarves were already seated.

The back room was mostly empty, with most of the inn’s guests apparently preferring the more dynamic environment of the main room at the front. A few of the other patrons eating at the booths scattered along the walls shot them curious looks as they passed, but the air of tension hanging over Cauldron had inculcated in most people a strong interest in focusing on their own business, and although Zenna thought that she recognized a few faces, no one offered so much as a greeting.

Arun, however, gave them a wave and a nod, and gestured for them to take places at the open end of the booth. Hodge, who was flanked by a pair of tall steins on his left and a platter piled with the bones from what looked like a whole family of birds on his right, spared them a grunt as he continued stuffing bits of meat from his current project into his mouth. From the accumulation already present on his beard and his jacket, Zenna figured that he’d already been at it for quite some time.

“Nice of you to wait for us,” Dannel said dryly. Hodge’s reply was garbled over a mouthful of meat, but Zenna knew him well enough to guess at the content.

“Dwarves,” Mole said, hopping up onto a bench in an adjacent, vacant booth. “I just can’t do anything with these boys, and the gods know I’ve tried.”

Zenna saw that both dwarves were wearing their armor, and Hodge’s new axe was propped up against the wall within easy reach. She hadn’t seen him without the weapon since they’d won it from the orog chief, and while he hadn’t named it so far as she’d heard, Mole had already provided at least a dozen suggestions.

“Expecting trouble?” she asked, as she took a seat at the far end of the booth from the noisome dwarf.

Arun nodded grimly. “This city’s on edge,” he replied. “And I don’t care if they’re lawfully deputized or not, so long as half-orcs and ogres are walking the streets, I’ll keep my weapons close at hand.”

“Defying the law? How un-paladinlike of you, Arun,” Dannel said. “There may be hope for you yet, my friend.”

“A law that begets evil is the antithesis of justice,” the paladin replied. “And I am sensing much evil in Cauldron since our return.”

“Well, what I’m sensing now is the absence of a waitress,” Dannel replied lightly. “While yon dwarf’s antics have a way of reducing the appetite, I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and even ‘prancing elves’ need to eat.”

“Mra’ap ar’ll ‘ak yer a froofy sarad,” Hodge said, over a mouthful of food.

Zenna glanced over at Mole, and saw that the gnome had turned her attention from the light-hearted exchange out toward the front room. She followed her friend’s gaze, and saw a stirring of some sort in the front room. The angle through the arched exit didn’t give much of a view of the common beyond the edge of the bar, but there was something... an odd lull in the din, followed by a couple of surprised exclamations a few moments later.

A figure appeared under the low lintel, his head nearly scraping the weathered wooden arch. He was a half-orc, and at first glance Zenna thought he was one of the many mercenary soldiers who were ubiquitous in Cauldron now. But even before the man reached for the massive sword slung across his back, Zenna sensed something wrong. It took her a few heartbeats to register the discordant element.

The man was absolutely silent; he made no noise when he walked, and the sword slid from his scabbard without even the faintest whisper of sound. When he leapt forward, his heavy boot landed on the smooth floorboards without noise. Behind him, Zenna caught a glimpse of a slender woman, clad in studded leather armor with a billowing cloak spreading in her wake as she followed the warrior into the room.

“Ambush!” Zenna cried, an instant after Mole shouted a similar warning. Even as the others looked up from their conversation to see the intruders, Zenna opened her mouth to speak the words of a spell, knowing she was too late.

She managed one word before the charging warrior drew near enough for the magical silence surrounding him to envelop them, and her magic fled.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 247

A clinical part of Zenna’s mind recorded the details, even as her spell dissipated and her heart pounded in her chest at the brutish hulk charging them. He was moving incredibly fast, too fast, and a faint glow surrounded him. She suspected that at least one enhancing spell, and probably more, had been placed upon him.

The plates and mugs on the table started sliding downward as Arun lifted the table. Hodge’s exclamation was silent, the dwarf’s mouth moving soundlessly, Mole leaping back to hit the floor with a roll, Dannel lifting Alakast...

The sword came crashing down, and with horror Zenna realized that it was coming for her. She tried to duck down beneath the edge of the booth, but the blade tore into the seat behind her and kept going, and she felt pain explode in her back as it slashed through her clothes and bit deep into her flesh. She tried to roll with the hit, but only staggered awkwardly from the booth, trying to get away, but there was nowhere to go.

She looked up and saw the woman pointing at her. Her eyes fixed on a silver icon that she’d worn concealed under her cloak, visible now that she was moving quickly. A silver skull...

Pain struck her again like a wave as a bolt of searing, white-hot light erupted from the woman’s outstretched hand, slamming into her with the force of a hurled brick. She staggered back against the adjacent booth, knocking the table ajar, her thoughts jumbled with the ferocity of the attacks against her.

But she was sufficiently aware to see the streak of red flame that appeared from thin air, flashing across the room to strike her in the shoulder. Her cloak helped deflect the scorching ray, but even as her mind registered the attack from an invisible mage, a second bolt shot solidly into her chest, and she fell back into the booth, consciousness fleeing from her in a torrent.

Dannel watched with horror as the assassins—three, he realized, reaching the same conclusion as Zenna about the hidden mage—focused their attacks on Zenna, taking her down with a combination of powerful attacks. These foes were powerful and well-prepared, but he and his friends were experienced veterans, and they were quick to respond.

Even as the elf vaulted the sundered partition that separated their booth from the adjacent one, leaping to Zenna’s aid, Arun hurled their table into the attacking half-orc. The huge sword struck the table solidly, smashing it with a single blow, but behind it came the dwarves, lashing out with their weapons. Arun’s sword slammed into the torso of the half-orc, cutting through the chain links of the mailshirt he wore, the holy power of the sword flaring as it found evil to destroy. The warrior dodged back, but only a step as he sought to recover for another attack, but that maneuver did not foil Hodge, whose axe burst into eager flame as he brought it around in a wide arc, catching the would-be slayer solidly in the side.

But the half-orc seemed possessed of a considerable fortitude, and he lifted the sword with incredible quickness, ready to fight on.

A slight form darted under Hodge’s swing and rolled between the half-orc’s legs, coming up out of her tumble with her rapier already darting into the warrior’s back. The half-orc stiffened and let out a silent cry as the length of Mole’s new weapon vanished under the trailing edge of his mailshirt, reappearing a moment later drenched in his blood.

Dannel bent over Zenna’s blasted and bleeding form. He was frustrated by his inability to magically heal her wounds, as neither his bardic powers nor his healing wand would function in the area of magical silence. He had to rely on basic first aid, tearing a strip from Zenna’s torn shirt and using it an attempt to staunch the bleeding from the deep gash that the half-orc had torn in her back with his sword.

The enemy spellcasters, on the other hand, did not appear to be hindered by the magical silence in the least. The woman, holding a slender black wand in her left hand, darted nimbly forward toward Mole. The gnome saw her coming and turned to face her, but the woman was faster, extending a slender hand to touch the rogue lightly on the shoulder.

Mole stiffened and staggered back, her mouth opening to release a spray of blood as the inflict serious wounds spell from the priestess tore mercilessly through her insides.

Even as the gnome suffered, a pale violet ray appeared out of thin air, narrowly missing the injured half-orc before it struck Arun. The ray of enfeeblement poured dark energies into the paladin, and his movements became leaden, the very weight of his armor and weapons bearing him down as his strength faded.

Despite being weakened, Arun continued to press his attacks. But with his strength drained from him, his attacks were far less effective, and he managed only one glancing impact that barely cut through the warrior’s armor.

Seeing the paladin’s difficulty, Hodge surged forward with an all-out attack intended to take out this foe once and for all. As he shifted his position, however, he trod heavily upon one of the large metal steins that had been upon their table. Losing his balance, he fell heavily to the side, his axe falling from his hands as he splayed across the hardwood floor.

Dannel looked across the crowded battleground and felt a cold chill. These enemies fought together with a grim precision, and they seemed to know exactly how to counter their own tactics. He felt rather than heard Zenna cough as blood from her wound fouled her insides, and fear gripped his heart as he felt her slipping away from him, despite his efforts to stabilize her.

Together, they had faced dragons, demons, and terrible foes. But he could not escape a grim, unmistakable fact.

They were being beaten.

 

[Broccli_Head]

Dannel! Target Spellcasters. You don't need to speak to fire your bow...sigh....

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 248

Confronted with an effective ambush by skilled assassins, his friends taking a beating at their hands, Dannel reached for Alakast. He knew, however, that if he left Zenna, it was very likely that that woman he loved, the woman he’d been charged with protecting, would bleed to death here in the back room of an inn in Cauldron.

And then he saw a familiar face at the entrance of the room, as Annah Taskerhill stepped into view.

The noblewoman’s eyes widened in surprise, but the bard too was an experienced adventurer, and she quickly evaluated the situation. She spread her hands and opened her mouth wide, and unleashed a discordant shriek that tore through the room.

The sound was more than a scream, it contained the force of a dispel magic spell that pulsed through the room and warred with the spells that surrounded the assassins. Each bore many enchantments, and the spell, unfocused as it was, could not affect them all, but the results were still dramatic as the silence collapsed, and the sounds of battle filled the confined space. At the same instant, the air in the middle of the room shimmered and a lean, lanky man clad in a loose gray robe appeared, turning to face this new threat.

Dannel did not hesitate, unleashing his healing song, pouring magical power into Zenna’s stricken body. She jerked as the positive energy flowed into her with a torrent, dragging her back to consciousness.

“What...” she mumbled.

“You’re badly hurt,” he told her, interrupting the song only long enough to grab his wand from its pouch. “Heal yourself.”

“Take out the paladin!” the enemy wizard said, lifting his hand and firing a pair of scorching rays into Annah Taskerhill. The bard managed to dodge partly out of the way of the first blast, but the second caught her solidly in the torso, and she fell back out of the doorway, her fine clothes smoldering where the magical flames had struck her.

The half-orc tried to obey the command, laying into Arun with a series of potent blows. Arun deflected one stroke with his smaller blade, and grunted as a second landed heavily on his shoulder with enough force to slightly dent the mithral plate.

“Enough, assassin,” the dwarf said, gritting his teeth as he tried to fight through the magical weakness that had stolen over him.

Even as the warrior of Moradin raised his holy blade to strike, the priestess stepped back and invoked the dark power of her grim god. A storm of negative energy swept through the room, an unholy blight that tore mercilessly through the chamber. Two commoners who’d been hiding under their table during the violent battle had their lives snuffed out by the dark power of the spell, and the companions—particularly those whose hearts clove truest to the path of good—suffered as well as the fell wave washed over them. The assassins, dedicated to selfishness and evil, felt nothing but a fell exultation, and as the cloud dissipated they readied themselves for a final attack that would overcome their targets, and earn their pay.

They had come close. But not close enough.

Arun roared out a dwarvish cry of rage and battle as he thrust the full length of his sword into the half-orc’s chest. The warrior cried out, his huge sword falling from his suddenly limp fingers to clatter on the floor.

Belting out a loud string of profanities in both dwarvish and the common speech, Hodge pulled himself up off the floor and picked up his axe, charging toward the priestess. She dodged back out of his way, but was unable to avoid Mole, who tumbled into place behind her, stinging her with a deep thrust of her rapier into the meaty muscle of her left leg. The assassin limped back, trying to keep both of her enemies in front of her.

“Kemock! We must flee!”

Arun leapt over the body of the half-orc as he fell, and rushed toward the sorcerer. But before he could reach him, Kemock unleashed his most powerful spell. A cone of cold slammed into them with the force of a hundred winters, filling the room with icy death.

Dannel threw himself over Zenna’s still-ravaged body, shielding her from the worst effects of the blast. When the spell had ended, however, both were clutched together in a frozen embrace, unmoving.

Mole and her adversary had both been at the edges of the spell’s effect, and both evaded it easily. Hodge, however, lacked their speed and agility, and he staggered as frost coated his squat frame, driving through his clothes to chill his flesh.

And Arun, already heavily wounded... Arun was caught with the full force of the cone. For several seconds he was lost in the roiling pulse of cold, completely shrouded in its power, blasted backward by its force.

“Taste frozen death, holy warrior,” the man mocked, exulting in his power.

But his smile vanished as the storm ended... and a gleaming steel blade came crashing down, slashing through his shoulder and driving magical steel deep into his torso. Kemock staggered backward, a bright line of red gushing down over his robe. The sorcerer snarled and called upon his greater invisibility spell to cloak him once again, but even as he spoke the words of power a voice sounded behind him.

“A useful spell. But it will not save you now, assassin.”

He felt the touch that sent a surge through his body, countering his magic, matching the arcane currents exactly and disrupting them. He turned to see the dark-skinned woman there, and hissed, “I will destroy you, bitch!”

“I don’t think so,” Arun said, and that was the last thing that Kemoch Brage heard before the paladin’s sword ended his life.

The woman found herself hard-pressed as well. Facing both Mole and Hodge, sporting several wounds, she finally abandoned the fight, turning and running toward the exit. Hodge swung at her with his axe as she fled, but he narrowly missed. Annah, focused on the sorcerer, turned too late to be able to hinder her escape, and while Arun took a few steps after her, Mole’s voice drew him around.

“Arun! It’s Zenna and Dannel... come quickly!”

 

[Heroditis]

Very nice imagery. I'm looking forward to seeing if the balance between our heros and the Storm blades changes significantly.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 249

“You saved our lives,” Dannel said to Annah, still shivering even as Zenna continued to cast healing spells upon him.

Both had come to the very edge of death, before Arun’s healing powers had drawn them back from the brink. Only Zenna’s innate resistance to cold, and Dannel’s selfless sacrifice had saved her life, and it had quite nearly cost him his own in the bargain. She was quick to tell him that once she’d been revived, but the scolding was not fierce, and it was clear from the way her eyes shone that she knew just how close both of them had come.

The bard shrugged. Zenna had offered to heal her, but she’d declined, using her own bardic powers to treat the burns she’d suffered from the sorcerer’s fiery blasts.

“I may not be a shining scion of Good,” she said, “but I have no patience for assassins, especially ones that try to trash my favorite inn.”

“Those three knew a lot about us,” Zenna said. “They knew our abilities, and how to neutralize our tactics.” She coughed, her own body slow to recover from the beating it had taken, despite the healing that Arun, Dannel and she herself had channeled into her.

“Stupid to attack us ‘ere, all together,” Hodge said. “Ida waited ‘til we was alone, or sleepin’, or somesuch,” he said.

“This was no casual assault,” Annah said. “They had a number of powerful spells layered on them, spells that my dispel slid right off of.”

Zenna nodded. “She’s right, this was coordinated by someone more powerful, and they had to attack us quickly, together, before all of the spells wore off,” she said. “It was an all-or-nothing ambush.”

“They will learn soon enough that their effort failed, if they do not know already,” Arun said. “When that woman reports their failure, they may try again.”

Loud shouts from the front room drew their attention around. Mole was standing near the archway, and she looked through and reported back. “Looks like the Watch, finally,” she said.

“Let me do the talking,” Annah offered, as a patrol of muscular half-orcs led by a tall human lieutenant of the Watch entered the room.

They followed her advice, and after an hour of questions, with the occasional threat inserted for flavor, they found themselves out in the street again. The Morkoth had been closed for the rest of the night, and a few patrons lingered on the street, talking about the attack in small, quiet groups. The companions could sense the covert attention focused upon them, and Zenna felt particularly exposed here, where eyes could be watching them from any of a hundred hiding places.

“I must be going, to speak to my friends,” Annah said.

“Our thanks, again,” Dannel said.

“It would seem that I was in the wrong place at the right time,” she replied, turning away. Zenna, however, forestalled her.

“Wait, a moment.”

“Yes?”

“What happened to Todd Vanderboren?”

The other woman’s face clouded for a moment. “We were ambushed in the tunnels under the city. We were sent to investigate reports that band of kuo-toa had come up close to the surface, and were threatening the city. A wizard attacked us... in hindsight, he seemed to be quite knowledgeable about our tactics. He struck us with several lightning bolts before we even knew he was there... Todd was too slow, and was killed. The rest of us barely escaped with his body and our lives.”

The companions shared a look, and Annah looked thoughtful. “Do you think there is a connection between this attack and the ambush on us?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Zenna said. “But I’d watch yourself.”

“You as well.”

“One last question,” Zenna said. “You said you were ‘sent’. Who hired you, to investigate these tunnels?”

Annah’s expression darkened. “Ike Iverson. The second-in-command at the church of Kelemvor.”

* * * * *

“What interest would the church of Kelemvor have in killing adventurers?” Mole asked a short time later, as the companions made their way down Obsidian Avenue. “Half the town worships there, or at least pays the monthly tithe.”

“Yeah, everybody dies,” Hodge said. “So they be guaranteed business from ever’body, at least once.”

“I don’t know,” Zenna said. “I find myself saying that an awful lot since we got back here, and I don’t like it.”

“The matter bears investigating,” Dannel said. “But first we need to talk to Jenya, and see what she can tell us.”

Darkness had fallen over the city, and the streetlamps were mere pale, flickering orbs that turned the familiar street into a netherworld of shadows and mystery. The curfew that had been placed over the city after the tax riots had been eased, but there were few people on the streets, and the patrols of the Watch shot them hard looks as they passed.

“I think it would be a good idea if we all took quarters together, at least for the moment,” Zenna suggested. “I have a spell that can give warning if someone else tries to break in while we sleep.”

“Bloody hells, let’s just find us a vacant lot and sleep in yer magic house,” Hodge said.

“I could ask around, see if I can find out who wants us dead,” Mole suggested.

“Well, let’s see, shall we?” Zenna said. “There’s the survivors of that slaver operation we broke up. The Last Laugh, though we haven’t heard anything from them for a while. The cultists we defeated in the ruins under the city. The kuo-toa. That demon that almost killed us. Kaurophon. Did I miss anyone?”

“Oh, don’t forget that one of the hags got away,” Mole added helpfully. “Oh, and that beholder we saw, in Kazmojen’s bazaar.”

“Beholder?” Hodge asked.

“Sounds like you all were getting in way over your heads long before I came along,” Dannel said.

“Let’s focus on the current threat, shall we?” Zenna said. “Maybe Jenya will be able to tell us something.” She gestured ahead, where the tall cupola of the church of Helm was just becoming visible around the bend.

The wide front doors of the church were closed, and the lantern that often shone above them as a welcome to worshippers was unlit, leaving the recessed nave of the entry dark. The companions, frequent guests of the clergy of the Vigilant One, turned instead to the narrow gate that led to the courtyard beside the main temple building, and provided access to the low buildings that made up the rest of the complex. A soft light shone through the shutters of the rectory, indicating that at least someone was up and about at this hour.

The gate creaked slightly as they opened it and stepped through, but a moment later a familiar hiss interrupted them—the sound of a sword being drawn.

“Hold it right there, and nobody loses an arm,” came a rough voice behind them.

 

[Black Bard]

Great, great, great, Lazy!!!
I loved their interaction with Annah of the Stormblades!
Just keep on writing, man!!!