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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1244410" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 83She came in fire and blood, as she often did, a black specter that hunted her mercilessly, pursuing her until there was no place left to hide.  When she finally ran her to ground, catching up to her in a dead-end corridor, there was nothing she could do as she came on, burning, that mocking laughter taunting her weakness.  Bodies were there, she saw; she hadn’t noticed them before.  Familiar forms with familiar faces, now broken and ruined.  She couldn’t turn her eyes away from them, even as death came for her.  The laughter filled her as the heavy silver flail came down toward her head...“Aaahhhh!” Zenna shot up out of her bed, shaking, the reality of her room removing the afterimage of the dream but doing nothing to ease the feelings that lingered in its wake.  It wasn’t the first time, and she feared that it would not be the last. She rose, and crossed to the bedtable and the basin there.  The water was cold and brackish, but she splashed her face with it, anyway.  Mole’s bed was vacant, undisturbed.  She crossed to the small window and looked outside. It was quiet and dark in that way you find in most cities just before dawn.  The darkness held no menace for her, but it was foreboding, nonetheless, to see the busy streets of Cauldron deserted and empty.  She crossed not to her bed, but to the chair at her desk, and sat down.  She ignored the lantern; she didn’t need the light.  She didn’t think she could get back to sleep, but neither was she ready to face the day. The service for Illewyn was today.  She knew that she would have to go, but at the same time felt a dread at the prospect of confronting what had happened anew.  She knew that she would face anger, even hatred; Morgan had flown into a rage when they’d first returned, and Zenna suspected that only Jenya’s intervention had avoided a violent confrontation.  She would have thought that they all would have had enough violence, with all that had happened...They had been victorious again, but again the cost had been high.  Zenna hadn’t fallen apart this time as she had when Ruphos had died at the hands of Kazmojen, but the feelings were there, returning like a hated enemy thought forever gone only to return when you were least able to face him.  Her thoughts drifted back inevitably to the chaos of that day.  She hadn’t been conscious to witness the end of the battle with Triel and her minions, but Mole had filled in the details later.  The death of their leader had stolen what will to fight had remained among the Alleybashers, who had beat a hasty retreat rather than remain to face Mole and Dannel.  Dannel had expended the last of the energy of his healing wand restoring Zenna and Arun to consciousness, but there was nothing that he could have done for Illewyn.  Mercifully the elf had quickly covered the ruined face of the cleric, but Zenna knew that the image would be burned into her memory for the remainder of her life.  Even Arun seemed solemn, taking up the body of the priestess and they gathered their gear and departed the still nameless ruins under the city for the wind and the rain above.  Bruised and battered, covered with blood and grime, they had reported directly to Jenya, bearing their ill news and equally unpleasant burden.  They’d found three of the wands of control water on the body of the evil priestess, along with a variety of other devices that responded positively to Zenna’s detect magic spell.  They were in no condition to return to the lava tube and the underground complex, however, so instead they returned to the Drunken Morkoth after turning the wands over to Jenya.  The next day, refreshed in body if not in mind, they returned to the Temple of Helm, only to find that the task they had begun had been completed by another.  In the interval since their return, the news of what had happened had spread swiftly.  Zenna had her suspicions about that, as she’d caught a glimpse of Morgan in the courtyard outside the cathedral, afterward, his look both smug and anguished with a dash of hatred that radiated out from him like a sickly stench.  Jenya told them that the mayor had directly intervened, and had sent a patrol of armed mercenaries along with a group of local adventurers into the caverns that evening, to cleanse the place and find the rest of the wands. Even before the High Priestess had told them the name of the adventuring company, Zenna had known instinctively who it was.  Arun had been rather... disgruntled... at the news, she recalled. The Stormblades and the mercenaries had found the complex mostly deserted, which didn’t surprise Zenna.  There was no sign of the remaining bandits, nor did they encounter the halfling mage who’d given the companions such trouble.  They did find some undead creatures within a natural warren of tunnels and caverns in the farthest edges of the complex, including a terrible entity that had once been a gnoll.  Several of the mercenaries were killed by this monstrosity, but the Stormblades emerged victorious with several more of the wands and a considerable haul of treasure.  When told the rough amount of the find, which ran to thousands of gold and other coins, Mole had lamented, “But that’s our loot!”  But the Stormblades had been quite canny, donating a considerable share of the treasure to the city, and so no one in positions of authority had raised any concerns about that resolution.  Somehow the noble adventurers also managed to collect most of the credit for recovering the wands, even though they’d only found two to the companions’ three.  Zenna sighed.  She didn’t mind that, although Dannel and Mole had been quite indignant.  She didn’t want accolates, or fame.  What do you want? came a niggling thought in the back of her mind. She looked at the window, where the faintest hints of dawn were just becoming visible. At the moment, she just wished that she could get some sleep. THE END OF “FLOOD SEASON”COMING SOON: “ZENITH TRAJECTORY”</blockquote>

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