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Story Hour
Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 7845219" data-attributes="member: 11697"><p>Helekanalith paused to adjust his glasses, then with a single fluid motion he returned to taking notes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The Keeper of the Tower sat in his office, staring across his desk at the trio of senior apprentices who stood there, their eyes glazed over, staring into space. One of them, a copper-furred individual with a notch missing from one ear, the scar tissue at the edge gilded with poured and magically molded gold, stood with his mouth open with prominent sialorrhea, slowly dribbling a pool onto the floor. All three of them stood there awkwardly, barely in control of their most basic capacities, but despite that, their hands adeptly moved and plucked at the pages of ephemeral, immaterial, nonexistent books and scrolls. Through their minds the Keeper riffled, browsing through their surface thoughts to collect the contents of their mental delving.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Every arcanaloth, be they in Gehenna or not, had mental access to a shared pool of knowledge built into the structure of the Tower Arcane by its architect and creator, Larsdana ap Neut, the First Majestrix of the Fourfold Furnace. Using the pool was something virtually every arcanaloth did, and frequently so, if judiciously, as availing themselves of it was also a liability in that it recorded what one was searching for and accessing, and every other arcanaloth was privy to that information.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Larsdana herself never used the Tower’s pool. Not directly. Like Helekanalaith at present, the Witch-Queen of Gehenna had somehow managed to overwrite the basic nature of every arcanaloth that passed through the furnaces of Gehenna or held tenure within the Tower. The Keeper’s predecessor had inserted a loophole in their nature by which she could utilize the Pool by proxy through their minds without their knowledge, their desire, or the Pool retaining a trace of that attempt for any others to discover, including Helekanalaith as her successor as Keeper.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The present Keeper had discovered that tool relatively late, over twelve centuries after he’d usurped and imprisoned her, and its very existence terrified him, as it clearly meant that she’d utilized it on him during his tenure as her direct apprentice. It also left open the question of just what else remained written into the very bones of the Tower and himself and his kindred caste that she’d engineered on her own or in concert with the baernaloth that had once dwelled within her: Alashra the Dream-Eater. His own spiritual parasite was abjectly silently, and had been for many long years.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Unbeknownst to the Keeper, his ever-present, ever-watching tapeworm of the soul, the baernaloth Sarkithel fek Parthis, had not spoken a word since Vorkannis the Ebon had emerged onto the Waste. When the Oinoloth had slowly, inexorably hunting down and massacred most all of the altraloths and killed his predecessor Mydianchlarus, he’d eliminated the greatest rivals he faced for his present throne. That was only a side effect of his actions however. His intention through it all had not just been a quest for purity, his stated desire, but to slay the hosts of the Demented. Helekanalaith, Charon, Xenghara, and Taba were the only known ones yet extant, the Keeper for obvious reasons, Charon because he had betrayed Mydianchlarus in favor of the Ebon and since then obeyed with conspicuous deference, while Xenghara had been delivered into the arms of the Hag Countess and his fate in Hell was a thing of horror, and Taba because the shapeshifter had so far defied their attempts to drag her back to Khin-Oin for execution.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The Keeper’s notes as always formed images and artwork from the words and symbols he wrote to transcribe his apprentices’ thoughts and through them his research pulled from the Tower’s communal knowledge pool. He rarely had a particular image in mind, allowing his subconscious to guide his stylus as it painted, and this time it dwelled on one image in particular: Larsdana’s wicked smile gazed back at him from the page.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Even in her imprisoned impotence she haunted him.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Turning and once more adjusting his golden spectacles, Helekanalaith gazed at the gemstone hovering above his desk, acting as a lamp: the gemstone that housed Larsdana’s bottled essence.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“We are finished here.” The Keeper muttered, placing his notebook and stylus down upon the desk, and with a flourish of his fingers and mentally incanted phrase, all three apprentices vanished, reappearing in their own chambers without a second having passed from their perspective.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Standing up, Helekanalaith set about a blur of activity, double and then triple checking the layers of wards upon his office that blocked entry both physically or magically, and diverted divinations to believably but wholly fabricated scenarios. Upon satisfying himself as to the sanctity of his demesne, the Keeper gathered Larsdana’s gemstone within his hands, cradling it against his chest.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Shedding his robes, Helekanalaith hovered in mid-air, crossing his legs and lowering his head to stare at the gemstone’s light pouring through the gaps between his fingers. Focusing on the sounds of the gem’s occupant’s screams, the Keeper’s consciousness faded and entered the demiplane-like mental construct through which he could directly communicate with his eternally suffering partner/mentor/beloved/prisoner/victim/victimizer.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Helekanalaith blinked, his eyes adjusting to the surrounding darkness. His mental projection stepped forward, now dressed in stunning, regal robes, fingers and neck adorned in precious jewels, and more than anything else that adorned him, a predatory smile adorned his muzzle as he gazed down at her.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At the construct’s center she sat, sitting in open space, suspended in mid-air, her pale blue and black robes dangling below her, fluttering in an immaterial breeze.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Greetings Helekanalaith, to what do I owe this pleasure of meeting once more?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The Majestrix of Gehenna’s tone was cunningly, deceptively pleasant, but the features upon her face were blank and emotionless, the same agonized juxtaposition that she’d adopted since her betrayal so many long millennia earlier.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Helekanalaith waited a moment before answering her question, taking in everything that she was once and still in some manner continued to be to him. The jackal-headed arcanaloth who looked up at him was regal and pristine, her fur a pale shade of light browns and tan, mottled with patches of gray, with her muzzle fading to darker brown and then nearly black. Her hair atop her head offset the prosaic appearance of her fur, a striking shade of crimson that fell to shoulder length, pin straight, with the trailing edges fading to jet black, though it did not remain so constantly: blink and the former Keeper’s hair would reverse to black with trailing edges of brilliant crimson as if she’d dipped its length in a sacrifice’s blood.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The once-Keeper’s eyes were a piercing shade of lavender, and in contrast to her once-apprentice with his own fit and chiseled physique, her own body was an afterthought to the power and knowledge locked within. Larsdana’s body was thin to the point of frailty, somewhere between wiry and anemic, and where the neckline of her robes plunged down, below the brilliant star sapphire amulet that hung there, her flesh was taught against her clavicles.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Helekanalaith reached out to stroke at her face and she did not withdraw.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“I visit you with a question Larsdana,” Helekanalaith said, running a claw along the edge of her jaw, “My Oinoloth once said something to me, ‘You are so very much like Larsdana. A pity that she never met me in person.’”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Larsdana’s face remained impassive, hiding her thoughts even as she turned her head and brush against his fingers, and even as with that touch a soft echo of her agonized screaming manifested softly through the environs of the construct.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“What do you know of Him? His history is nonexistent within the records of the Tower.” Helekanalaith asked, even there his voice inflected with a measure of fear and respect for his master. “What do you know of Vorkannis the Ebon, Oinoloth of the Waste? Who is he?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Larsdana could resist answering him, and she would suffer ever more for doing so. She could resist answering, but of course Helekanalaith would know, and thus she did not hesitate.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“I knew everything about him.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Helekanalaith blinked at an answer he did not expect.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Tell me everything.” The current Keeper demanded.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Alas my love,” Larsdana’s tone was gentile and almost regretful in her own way even as she eyes gleamed, puissant and purple, “But I can tell you nothing.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“We have forever my beloved.” Helekanalaith ran a claw across her lips with deceptive care, gentle and loving in his own way, as much as their kind could ever be, “There is no objective passage of time within this place. This will be painful. It always is.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“No my beloved…” Larsdana looked up at him, her words carefully chosen, “Student you misunderstand. I <strong>knew</strong> everything about him. EVERYTHING.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“… knew?” Helekanalaith’s mind stumbled over the specific tense in her answer and its implications.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Alas…” Larsdana’s voice trailed off, but her eyes remained locked upon her lover, “I know only that I once possessed that knowledge and those memories, but I no longer have them, amongst many, many others. All by intent.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For the first time in their meetings since he’d usurped her position, Larsdana smiled. Wickedly. Tauntingly. Even in her imprisonment she remained in some measure of power over her apprentice.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Helekanalaith swallowed, fighting back his apoplectic rage as his hand left her face and dropped to his side. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“You cannot discover what I cannot hide because I no longer possess it my love.” The Witch Queen of Gehenna continued to flash her ivory fangs, her eyes gleaming with presence and power even in the absence of either. “It was good seeing you again my love. I would dearly love to make these meetings more frequent, but you look as if you should go and attend to other matters and other thoughts…”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Larsdana began to laugh, and as Helekanalaith vanished from the mental construct, her laughter remained with him.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Their departure from Dubai’s Obscure Woe was swift, their spirits lifting by the passage of every footstep away from the Lie-Weaver’s lair. As soon as the ground transitioned from the lair’s flagstones to the crimson, stinking more of Torch’s surrounding swamps, Tristol didn’t even ask the others to gather close and prepare themselves before he waved his hands and swiftly incanted a planeshift.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“…Thank you for that!”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“So very much!”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The thanks flowed freely as the magic faded in a series of twinkling stars fading like real ones at the first light of dawn. The surroundings stood in stark contrast to those in proximity to Gehenna’s gatetown, the unnatural, blood-red swamp and the volcano-dominated skyline replaced with the pines and other conifers of deep, terrestrial forest.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The fresh, deeply resinous smell of conifers filled the air, and long shadows trailed along the ground, cast through the surrounding wood by the light of a late afternoon sun.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“This is the second time in a short while that we’ve been to Toril.” Nisha quipped, “What’s up with your home world?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Florian and Tristol smiled and shrugged.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“That being said, what can either of you tell the rest of us about where we are?” Clueless glanced at the two of them, “And also how far off target we are on that planeshift?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Well, I aimed for a location called the Great Dale that sits between two huge forests, the Rawlinswood and the Forest of Lethyr. We’re in an area that was once part of the ancient empire of Narfell, ruled by evil clerics who bound all manner of fiends into their service even as they pledged themselves to servitude post-death to various demonlords.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Nice folks, clearly.” Florian laughed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Ultimately Narfell came into conflict with a neighboring empire known as Raumathar, known for their love of monstrous constructs. The two empires warred for centuries and largely obliterated one another.” Tristol looked around, “And the Rawlinswood ended up swallowing most of old Narfell. The place is still littered with ruins, ancient spell-traps, and tons of still extant demons, not bound to anyone, but still stuck on the Material plane and not happy about that.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Lovely.” Toras rolled his eyes, “So what was this Dun-Tharos?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“That,” Tristol nodded, “Was the capital of Narfell. Completely obliterated by Raumathar, and since controlled by demons until in recent history a bunch of druids ran them out, at least until they were driven out by a priest of Talona called the Rotting Man who promptly summoned –back- a ton of demons, and that’s where things stand now.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“So how close to Dun-Tharos are we?” Fyrehowl asked, pausing and keening her muzzle to the wind and sniffing. The wind carried only the scent of trees and rotting loam, no demons or other creatures for the moment.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Tristol took several minutes to scry about the vicinity and compare what he saw to both his own knowledge and a conjured map. He smiled halfway into his search: they weren’t far off.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Not very far.” The aasimar said, “I aimed for the Great Dale and yeah, we were off target, but off target in a positive direction. If the tower we’re looking for is near Dun-Tharos, we’re maybe an hour’s walk from the city’s ruins.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“…where the Rotting Man rules…” Florian stuck out her tongue.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“We just met a baernaloth.” Toras shook his head, “I’m not worried about demons or demon worshipers. Bring it.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Clueless and Fyrehowl chuckled at the fighter’s bravado.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Beyond being close to Dun-Tharos, how are we going to find this specific tower?” Florian asked, glancing to Clueless.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The bladesinger hefted the box, warily looking at it. It was cold in his hands. “I haven’t noticed anything yet. I suppose we’ll find out when we get closer…”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">***</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That hour’s walk estimate ended up being a generous estimate by far. As they travelled through the Rawlinswood the party was ambushed no fewer than three times by mutated, diseased wildlife, demons in thrall to the Rotting Man, and a party of warriors led by a deacon of the so-called Chosen of Talona himself. The end result of all three conflicts was much the same: Toras’s bravado growing more and more, ultimately ending with him picking up the lead Talonite priest by the neck and slamming his head into a tree to predictable effect.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“You know?” Clueless said, cleaning blood from Razor’s blade. “A year ago I would have been genuinely worried about walking through the Rawlinswood like this. Now? Now this sort of thing is normal and every fight has just been a delay.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Even as Clueless smiled, Toras’s laughter and mocking insults to Talona and demons echoed in the background at full volume as the fighter reveled in their latest victory.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“He’s going to draw more enemies you know…” Fyrehowl mentioned with a shrug, sitting down upon a moss-covered chunk of masonry covered in carved symbols from ancient Narfell.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Ehh…” Clueless smirked, “Let him enjoy this. I think we’ll be fine unless the Rotting Man himself decides to show up. And so long as it’s obvious that we’re not actively walking towards his seat of power I don’t think he’s going to bother after we’ve been stomping everything that we’ve come up against. We’ll be fine.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Clueless’s words would normally have been accurate without any real boast, and that of course was when the baernaloth’s ‘gift’ made its presence known as within the satchel that the half-fey had placed it, it tugged against its container and tugged towards the northeast with enough force to make him stumble.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“The f*ck…” Clueless stammered as he staggered forward with the force of the box’s abrupt motion, only recovering once he’d restrained it, clutching it in his arms.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The others collectively stared at him as he cradled the baernaloth’s box, firmly resisting its irregular jerks in one specific direction. Softly they could all hear a sudden whirring and grinding of clockwork gears and tumblers, the sound carried with a bizarre resonance making it sound as if the box’s interior was some vast and fathomless chasm.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“What’s it doing?” Nisha edged away with a gingerly lift of first one hoof and then another, while beside her, Tristol stared at the utter and complete absence of magic surrounding the ur-fiend’s object.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“It’s tugging towards the tower we’re heading for presumably.” Clueless said, still resisting the box as it insistently tugged to the northeast like an iron bar towards a natural loadstone.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Well, the sooner it gets us there the sooner we’re bereft of it, whatever it is.” Fyrehowl eyed the box warily. “I just get the strangest feeling from that thing. And it’s not like the fiend gave us any idea of what it was or what it was going to do.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Then I suppose we get going…” Clueless glanced down, watching the box’s impish face staring back up at him. “Sooner we’re done with this, sooner we’re free of this.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Continuing forward, they fought a group of lesser demons and narrowly avoided another patrol of the Rotting Man’s followers and then they reached something of a respite from all such worries. A stone rose up at the edge of a clearing where the forest had been cut back decades earlier, with newer growth only starting to rise up over a wide field of grasses and wildflowers. The stone itself was newly carved and newly placed, though of the same native stone as the fallen rubble of ancient Dun-Tharos, emblazoned with symbols in that nation’s ancient language, as well as more modern Torillian tongues and Abyssal. All of the carvings read the same: “Beyond rises the lands of Master Muroth Chalmar, necromancer. Beware lest you serve forever in death.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“That’s a pleasant greeting.” Florian smirked. “Just please no undead.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Tristol glanced at the stone, his eyes flickering with a pale blue glow as he examined the magic on the stone itself and that which blanketed the landscape.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“He can back up that claim.” The wizard said, “But if it came to it, we’ll be good. But I don’t think it’ll come to it. I think he just wanted to be out here away from anyone that would bother him and his research, however unseemly as we can presume it would be.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Tristol turned back towards the stone, stepped forward and placed his hand atop the necromancer’s symbol. “Master Chalmar, greetings. My compatriots and myself wish to enter your lands and deliver a package to you, entrusted into our care by another. We do not know its nature or identity, only that it was to be given over to your care. We seek only to deliver it and be on our way.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At first there was no response, only the rustle of the tall grass with a sudden breeze.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Maybe he’s not home?” Nisha chuckled.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Well that’s that! I guess we have to kick the door in and have fun!” Toras said, a hand moving towards his sword. He didn’t get the chance.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The box tugged once again, forcing Clueless to restrain it, “Hold your evil horses, we’ll get there…”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That was when they received their response as with a sudden rattle of bone on bone a trio of skeletal warriors rose up, assembled from bones scattered and hidden on the ground, out of view. Blue and black necromantic energies flickered at the joints and juncture between bones, binding them together and empowering the undead creatures who turned as one to regard the visitors to Chalmar’s domain.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Those three where only the beginning. More and more figures rose with preternatural silence from grassland of the necromancer’s domain, ending with over a hundred more spots in the tall grass rustling with fury, a sickly blue glow emanating from them as more and more skeletal figures rose up. Secured by necromantic ligaments and tendons to articulate the bleached white bones, each skeletal warrior was clad in the rotted, rusted armor of a dozen or more civilizations and cultures, some separated by more than a thousand years, each figure clutching a broken spear, rusted axe, or shattered greatsword that each told the same story: untold men and women had died there in battle after forgotten battle, but each now answered to the call of a new master.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Each of the dead turned like the first three to regard the party, blue-black lightning flickering in their hollow eye sockets, energy through which their master observed and watched from afar. They watched but they did not step forward.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A moment passed and another figure rose up at the head of the undead legion, a spectral figure dressed in the formal dress of a diplomatic emissary from Old Narfell. This figure gave a gentle half-bow and approached up to the edge of the necromancer’s domain.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“May we proceed?” Tristol asked as the others tensed for a fight.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Without a sound the specter nodded and a fraction of a second later the skeletal legion nodded as one. The nearest of them extended a hand and gestured them forward, turning as they approached and swinging its arm in the same direction as the tugging of the box still clutched in Clueless’s arms, pointing the way to their master’s abode.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Warily the group complied, walking past the boundary marker and proceeding into Chalmar’s self-claimed domain. They did not do so unaccompanied, and as they traveled, every twenty feet additional scores of undead rose up from the ground, both skeletons or the translucent shades of ancient warriors from a myriad of cultures’ dead upon that unhallowed ground, all turning to watch them, and then falling down into pieces or discorporating as the party passed them by, only to be replaced by others every step of the way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At any given time over two hundred undead accompanied the group, hinting that tens of thousands lay dead below the level of the grass, all of them capable of being called upon by Chalmar should the need arise in his defense.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As silent as the dead that watched them, the party trekked across Chalmar’s domain, following a path effectively outlined by the undead guardians and further demarcated by the insistent, ever-present tugging of the baernaloth’s box.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Twenty minutes of walking later and they arrived at the end of the grasslands, the edge of the resurgent forest, and beheld Chalmar’s tower. Rising up in the shadow of ancient, towering trees, it rose up a dozen stories, reconstructed perfectly from the ancient rubble of an ancient structure from Old Narfell. The original fortress lay in ruins still, stretching back into the old growth forest.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>High up the tower’s height, a single figure looked down from a window, watching them approach, their features obscured by the distance. They were there for but a moment and then they were gone.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“I’d say that we’re here.” Tristol said, glancing at the skeletal hill giants that flanked the main entrance, the stairs rising up to their shoulder height and ending at a reinforced door covered in an intricate display of runes hand-carved into the wood.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“You know, I really, really hope that this goes well.” Florian said, glancing behind them where there now stood a veritable army of hundreds of skeletal soldiers, silent and motionless, with even more rising up behind them in an ever-expanding wave of the undead rising up and barring any escape.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Ah f*ck…” Clueless glanced behind at the skeletal army and exchanged a wary glance with Florian.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Maybe we can convince Chalmar that this was a COD?” Nisha giggled, trying to lighten the mood and pointedly ignoring the army behind them.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The spectral emissary walked before the party, floating up and partially through the steps, and then vanishing the through the door. Several minutes passed and the door opened, though only partially, revealing a thin figure standing in the entryway gazing out at them warily.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“What do you bring me,” A distinctly mortal voice called out, “And why does one of Mystra’s Chosen serve to make such a delivery?”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 7845219, member: 11697"] Helekanalith paused to adjust his glasses, then with a single fluid motion he returned to taking notes. The Keeper of the Tower sat in his office, staring across his desk at the trio of senior apprentices who stood there, their eyes glazed over, staring into space. One of them, a copper-furred individual with a notch missing from one ear, the scar tissue at the edge gilded with poured and magically molded gold, stood with his mouth open with prominent sialorrhea, slowly dribbling a pool onto the floor. All three of them stood there awkwardly, barely in control of their most basic capacities, but despite that, their hands adeptly moved and plucked at the pages of ephemeral, immaterial, nonexistent books and scrolls. Through their minds the Keeper riffled, browsing through their surface thoughts to collect the contents of their mental delving. Every arcanaloth, be they in Gehenna or not, had mental access to a shared pool of knowledge built into the structure of the Tower Arcane by its architect and creator, Larsdana ap Neut, the First Majestrix of the Fourfold Furnace. Using the pool was something virtually every arcanaloth did, and frequently so, if judiciously, as availing themselves of it was also a liability in that it recorded what one was searching for and accessing, and every other arcanaloth was privy to that information. Larsdana herself never used the Tower’s pool. Not directly. Like Helekanalaith at present, the Witch-Queen of Gehenna had somehow managed to overwrite the basic nature of every arcanaloth that passed through the furnaces of Gehenna or held tenure within the Tower. The Keeper’s predecessor had inserted a loophole in their nature by which she could utilize the Pool by proxy through their minds without their knowledge, their desire, or the Pool retaining a trace of that attempt for any others to discover, including Helekanalaith as her successor as Keeper. The present Keeper had discovered that tool relatively late, over twelve centuries after he’d usurped and imprisoned her, and its very existence terrified him, as it clearly meant that she’d utilized it on him during his tenure as her direct apprentice. It also left open the question of just what else remained written into the very bones of the Tower and himself and his kindred caste that she’d engineered on her own or in concert with the baernaloth that had once dwelled within her: Alashra the Dream-Eater. His own spiritual parasite was abjectly silently, and had been for many long years. Unbeknownst to the Keeper, his ever-present, ever-watching tapeworm of the soul, the baernaloth Sarkithel fek Parthis, had not spoken a word since Vorkannis the Ebon had emerged onto the Waste. When the Oinoloth had slowly, inexorably hunting down and massacred most all of the altraloths and killed his predecessor Mydianchlarus, he’d eliminated the greatest rivals he faced for his present throne. That was only a side effect of his actions however. His intention through it all had not just been a quest for purity, his stated desire, but to slay the hosts of the Demented. Helekanalaith, Charon, Xenghara, and Taba were the only known ones yet extant, the Keeper for obvious reasons, Charon because he had betrayed Mydianchlarus in favor of the Ebon and since then obeyed with conspicuous deference, while Xenghara had been delivered into the arms of the Hag Countess and his fate in Hell was a thing of horror, and Taba because the shapeshifter had so far defied their attempts to drag her back to Khin-Oin for execution. The Keeper’s notes as always formed images and artwork from the words and symbols he wrote to transcribe his apprentices’ thoughts and through them his research pulled from the Tower’s communal knowledge pool. He rarely had a particular image in mind, allowing his subconscious to guide his stylus as it painted, and this time it dwelled on one image in particular: Larsdana’s wicked smile gazed back at him from the page. Even in her imprisoned impotence she haunted him. Turning and once more adjusting his golden spectacles, Helekanalaith gazed at the gemstone hovering above his desk, acting as a lamp: the gemstone that housed Larsdana’s bottled essence. “We are finished here.” The Keeper muttered, placing his notebook and stylus down upon the desk, and with a flourish of his fingers and mentally incanted phrase, all three apprentices vanished, reappearing in their own chambers without a second having passed from their perspective. Standing up, Helekanalaith set about a blur of activity, double and then triple checking the layers of wards upon his office that blocked entry both physically or magically, and diverted divinations to believably but wholly fabricated scenarios. Upon satisfying himself as to the sanctity of his demesne, the Keeper gathered Larsdana’s gemstone within his hands, cradling it against his chest. Shedding his robes, Helekanalaith hovered in mid-air, crossing his legs and lowering his head to stare at the gemstone’s light pouring through the gaps between his fingers. Focusing on the sounds of the gem’s occupant’s screams, the Keeper’s consciousness faded and entered the demiplane-like mental construct through which he could directly communicate with his eternally suffering partner/mentor/beloved/prisoner/victim/victimizer. Helekanalaith blinked, his eyes adjusting to the surrounding darkness. His mental projection stepped forward, now dressed in stunning, regal robes, fingers and neck adorned in precious jewels, and more than anything else that adorned him, a predatory smile adorned his muzzle as he gazed down at her. At the construct’s center she sat, sitting in open space, suspended in mid-air, her pale blue and black robes dangling below her, fluttering in an immaterial breeze. “Greetings Helekanalaith, to what do I owe this pleasure of meeting once more?” The Majestrix of Gehenna’s tone was cunningly, deceptively pleasant, but the features upon her face were blank and emotionless, the same agonized juxtaposition that she’d adopted since her betrayal so many long millennia earlier. Helekanalaith waited a moment before answering her question, taking in everything that she was once and still in some manner continued to be to him. The jackal-headed arcanaloth who looked up at him was regal and pristine, her fur a pale shade of light browns and tan, mottled with patches of gray, with her muzzle fading to darker brown and then nearly black. Her hair atop her head offset the prosaic appearance of her fur, a striking shade of crimson that fell to shoulder length, pin straight, with the trailing edges fading to jet black, though it did not remain so constantly: blink and the former Keeper’s hair would reverse to black with trailing edges of brilliant crimson as if she’d dipped its length in a sacrifice’s blood. The once-Keeper’s eyes were a piercing shade of lavender, and in contrast to her once-apprentice with his own fit and chiseled physique, her own body was an afterthought to the power and knowledge locked within. Larsdana’s body was thin to the point of frailty, somewhere between wiry and anemic, and where the neckline of her robes plunged down, below the brilliant star sapphire amulet that hung there, her flesh was taught against her clavicles. Helekanalaith reached out to stroke at her face and she did not withdraw. “I visit you with a question Larsdana,” Helekanalaith said, running a claw along the edge of her jaw, “My Oinoloth once said something to me, ‘You are so very much like Larsdana. A pity that she never met me in person.’” Larsdana’s face remained impassive, hiding her thoughts even as she turned her head and brush against his fingers, and even as with that touch a soft echo of her agonized screaming manifested softly through the environs of the construct. “What do you know of Him? His history is nonexistent within the records of the Tower.” Helekanalaith asked, even there his voice inflected with a measure of fear and respect for his master. “What do you know of Vorkannis the Ebon, Oinoloth of the Waste? Who is he?” Larsdana could resist answering him, and she would suffer ever more for doing so. She could resist answering, but of course Helekanalaith would know, and thus she did not hesitate. “I knew everything about him.” Helekanalaith blinked at an answer he did not expect. “Tell me everything.” The current Keeper demanded. “Alas my love,” Larsdana’s tone was gentile and almost regretful in her own way even as she eyes gleamed, puissant and purple, “But I can tell you nothing.” “We have forever my beloved.” Helekanalaith ran a claw across her lips with deceptive care, gentle and loving in his own way, as much as their kind could ever be, “There is no objective passage of time within this place. This will be painful. It always is.” “No my beloved…” Larsdana looked up at him, her words carefully chosen, “Student you misunderstand. I [b]knew[/b] everything about him. EVERYTHING.” “… knew?” Helekanalaith’s mind stumbled over the specific tense in her answer and its implications. “Alas…” Larsdana’s voice trailed off, but her eyes remained locked upon her lover, “I know only that I once possessed that knowledge and those memories, but I no longer have them, amongst many, many others. All by intent.” For the first time in their meetings since he’d usurped her position, Larsdana smiled. Wickedly. Tauntingly. Even in her imprisonment she remained in some measure of power over her apprentice. Helekanalaith swallowed, fighting back his apoplectic rage as his hand left her face and dropped to his side. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. “You cannot discover what I cannot hide because I no longer possess it my love.” The Witch Queen of Gehenna continued to flash her ivory fangs, her eyes gleaming with presence and power even in the absence of either. “It was good seeing you again my love. I would dearly love to make these meetings more frequent, but you look as if you should go and attend to other matters and other thoughts…” Larsdana began to laugh, and as Helekanalaith vanished from the mental construct, her laughter remained with him. [center]****[/center] Their departure from Dubai’s Obscure Woe was swift, their spirits lifting by the passage of every footstep away from the Lie-Weaver’s lair. As soon as the ground transitioned from the lair’s flagstones to the crimson, stinking more of Torch’s surrounding swamps, Tristol didn’t even ask the others to gather close and prepare themselves before he waved his hands and swiftly incanted a planeshift. “…Thank you for that!” “So very much!” The thanks flowed freely as the magic faded in a series of twinkling stars fading like real ones at the first light of dawn. The surroundings stood in stark contrast to those in proximity to Gehenna’s gatetown, the unnatural, blood-red swamp and the volcano-dominated skyline replaced with the pines and other conifers of deep, terrestrial forest. The fresh, deeply resinous smell of conifers filled the air, and long shadows trailed along the ground, cast through the surrounding wood by the light of a late afternoon sun. “This is the second time in a short while that we’ve been to Toril.” Nisha quipped, “What’s up with your home world?” Florian and Tristol smiled and shrugged. “That being said, what can either of you tell the rest of us about where we are?” Clueless glanced at the two of them, “And also how far off target we are on that planeshift?” “Well, I aimed for a location called the Great Dale that sits between two huge forests, the Rawlinswood and the Forest of Lethyr. We’re in an area that was once part of the ancient empire of Narfell, ruled by evil clerics who bound all manner of fiends into their service even as they pledged themselves to servitude post-death to various demonlords.” “Nice folks, clearly.” Florian laughed. “Ultimately Narfell came into conflict with a neighboring empire known as Raumathar, known for their love of monstrous constructs. The two empires warred for centuries and largely obliterated one another.” Tristol looked around, “And the Rawlinswood ended up swallowing most of old Narfell. The place is still littered with ruins, ancient spell-traps, and tons of still extant demons, not bound to anyone, but still stuck on the Material plane and not happy about that.” “Lovely.” Toras rolled his eyes, “So what was this Dun-Tharos?” “That,” Tristol nodded, “Was the capital of Narfell. Completely obliterated by Raumathar, and since controlled by demons until in recent history a bunch of druids ran them out, at least until they were driven out by a priest of Talona called the Rotting Man who promptly summoned –back- a ton of demons, and that’s where things stand now.” “So how close to Dun-Tharos are we?” Fyrehowl asked, pausing and keening her muzzle to the wind and sniffing. The wind carried only the scent of trees and rotting loam, no demons or other creatures for the moment. Tristol took several minutes to scry about the vicinity and compare what he saw to both his own knowledge and a conjured map. He smiled halfway into his search: they weren’t far off. “Not very far.” The aasimar said, “I aimed for the Great Dale and yeah, we were off target, but off target in a positive direction. If the tower we’re looking for is near Dun-Tharos, we’re maybe an hour’s walk from the city’s ruins.” “…where the Rotting Man rules…” Florian stuck out her tongue. “We just met a baernaloth.” Toras shook his head, “I’m not worried about demons or demon worshipers. Bring it.” Clueless and Fyrehowl chuckled at the fighter’s bravado. “Beyond being close to Dun-Tharos, how are we going to find this specific tower?” Florian asked, glancing to Clueless. The bladesinger hefted the box, warily looking at it. It was cold in his hands. “I haven’t noticed anything yet. I suppose we’ll find out when we get closer…” [center]***[/center] That hour’s walk estimate ended up being a generous estimate by far. As they travelled through the Rawlinswood the party was ambushed no fewer than three times by mutated, diseased wildlife, demons in thrall to the Rotting Man, and a party of warriors led by a deacon of the so-called Chosen of Talona himself. The end result of all three conflicts was much the same: Toras’s bravado growing more and more, ultimately ending with him picking up the lead Talonite priest by the neck and slamming his head into a tree to predictable effect. “You know?” Clueless said, cleaning blood from Razor’s blade. “A year ago I would have been genuinely worried about walking through the Rawlinswood like this. Now? Now this sort of thing is normal and every fight has just been a delay.” Even as Clueless smiled, Toras’s laughter and mocking insults to Talona and demons echoed in the background at full volume as the fighter reveled in their latest victory. “He’s going to draw more enemies you know…” Fyrehowl mentioned with a shrug, sitting down upon a moss-covered chunk of masonry covered in carved symbols from ancient Narfell. “Ehh…” Clueless smirked, “Let him enjoy this. I think we’ll be fine unless the Rotting Man himself decides to show up. And so long as it’s obvious that we’re not actively walking towards his seat of power I don’t think he’s going to bother after we’ve been stomping everything that we’ve come up against. We’ll be fine.” Clueless’s words would normally have been accurate without any real boast, and that of course was when the baernaloth’s ‘gift’ made its presence known as within the satchel that the half-fey had placed it, it tugged against its container and tugged towards the northeast with enough force to make him stumble. “The f*ck…” Clueless stammered as he staggered forward with the force of the box’s abrupt motion, only recovering once he’d restrained it, clutching it in his arms. The others collectively stared at him as he cradled the baernaloth’s box, firmly resisting its irregular jerks in one specific direction. Softly they could all hear a sudden whirring and grinding of clockwork gears and tumblers, the sound carried with a bizarre resonance making it sound as if the box’s interior was some vast and fathomless chasm. “What’s it doing?” Nisha edged away with a gingerly lift of first one hoof and then another, while beside her, Tristol stared at the utter and complete absence of magic surrounding the ur-fiend’s object. “It’s tugging towards the tower we’re heading for presumably.” Clueless said, still resisting the box as it insistently tugged to the northeast like an iron bar towards a natural loadstone. “Well, the sooner it gets us there the sooner we’re bereft of it, whatever it is.” Fyrehowl eyed the box warily. “I just get the strangest feeling from that thing. And it’s not like the fiend gave us any idea of what it was or what it was going to do.” “Then I suppose we get going…” Clueless glanced down, watching the box’s impish face staring back up at him. “Sooner we’re done with this, sooner we’re free of this.” [center]****[/center] Continuing forward, they fought a group of lesser demons and narrowly avoided another patrol of the Rotting Man’s followers and then they reached something of a respite from all such worries. A stone rose up at the edge of a clearing where the forest had been cut back decades earlier, with newer growth only starting to rise up over a wide field of grasses and wildflowers. The stone itself was newly carved and newly placed, though of the same native stone as the fallen rubble of ancient Dun-Tharos, emblazoned with symbols in that nation’s ancient language, as well as more modern Torillian tongues and Abyssal. All of the carvings read the same: “Beyond rises the lands of Master Muroth Chalmar, necromancer. Beware lest you serve forever in death.” “That’s a pleasant greeting.” Florian smirked. “Just please no undead.” Tristol glanced at the stone, his eyes flickering with a pale blue glow as he examined the magic on the stone itself and that which blanketed the landscape. “He can back up that claim.” The wizard said, “But if it came to it, we’ll be good. But I don’t think it’ll come to it. I think he just wanted to be out here away from anyone that would bother him and his research, however unseemly as we can presume it would be.” Tristol turned back towards the stone, stepped forward and placed his hand atop the necromancer’s symbol. “Master Chalmar, greetings. My compatriots and myself wish to enter your lands and deliver a package to you, entrusted into our care by another. We do not know its nature or identity, only that it was to be given over to your care. We seek only to deliver it and be on our way.” At first there was no response, only the rustle of the tall grass with a sudden breeze. “Maybe he’s not home?” Nisha chuckled. “Well that’s that! I guess we have to kick the door in and have fun!” Toras said, a hand moving towards his sword. He didn’t get the chance. The box tugged once again, forcing Clueless to restrain it, “Hold your evil horses, we’ll get there…” That was when they received their response as with a sudden rattle of bone on bone a trio of skeletal warriors rose up, assembled from bones scattered and hidden on the ground, out of view. Blue and black necromantic energies flickered at the joints and juncture between bones, binding them together and empowering the undead creatures who turned as one to regard the visitors to Chalmar’s domain. Those three where only the beginning. More and more figures rose with preternatural silence from grassland of the necromancer’s domain, ending with over a hundred more spots in the tall grass rustling with fury, a sickly blue glow emanating from them as more and more skeletal figures rose up. Secured by necromantic ligaments and tendons to articulate the bleached white bones, each skeletal warrior was clad in the rotted, rusted armor of a dozen or more civilizations and cultures, some separated by more than a thousand years, each figure clutching a broken spear, rusted axe, or shattered greatsword that each told the same story: untold men and women had died there in battle after forgotten battle, but each now answered to the call of a new master. Each of the dead turned like the first three to regard the party, blue-black lightning flickering in their hollow eye sockets, energy through which their master observed and watched from afar. They watched but they did not step forward. A moment passed and another figure rose up at the head of the undead legion, a spectral figure dressed in the formal dress of a diplomatic emissary from Old Narfell. This figure gave a gentle half-bow and approached up to the edge of the necromancer’s domain. “May we proceed?” Tristol asked as the others tensed for a fight. Without a sound the specter nodded and a fraction of a second later the skeletal legion nodded as one. The nearest of them extended a hand and gestured them forward, turning as they approached and swinging its arm in the same direction as the tugging of the box still clutched in Clueless’s arms, pointing the way to their master’s abode. Warily the group complied, walking past the boundary marker and proceeding into Chalmar’s self-claimed domain. They did not do so unaccompanied, and as they traveled, every twenty feet additional scores of undead rose up from the ground, both skeletons or the translucent shades of ancient warriors from a myriad of cultures’ dead upon that unhallowed ground, all turning to watch them, and then falling down into pieces or discorporating as the party passed them by, only to be replaced by others every step of the way. At any given time over two hundred undead accompanied the group, hinting that tens of thousands lay dead below the level of the grass, all of them capable of being called upon by Chalmar should the need arise in his defense. As silent as the dead that watched them, the party trekked across Chalmar’s domain, following a path effectively outlined by the undead guardians and further demarcated by the insistent, ever-present tugging of the baernaloth’s box. Twenty minutes of walking later and they arrived at the end of the grasslands, the edge of the resurgent forest, and beheld Chalmar’s tower. Rising up in the shadow of ancient, towering trees, it rose up a dozen stories, reconstructed perfectly from the ancient rubble of an ancient structure from Old Narfell. The original fortress lay in ruins still, stretching back into the old growth forest. High up the tower’s height, a single figure looked down from a window, watching them approach, their features obscured by the distance. They were there for but a moment and then they were gone. “I’d say that we’re here.” Tristol said, glancing at the skeletal hill giants that flanked the main entrance, the stairs rising up to their shoulder height and ending at a reinforced door covered in an intricate display of runes hand-carved into the wood. “You know, I really, really hope that this goes well.” Florian said, glancing behind them where there now stood a veritable army of hundreds of skeletal soldiers, silent and motionless, with even more rising up behind them in an ever-expanding wave of the undead rising up and barring any escape. “Ah f*ck…” Clueless glanced behind at the skeletal army and exchanged a wary glance with Florian. “Maybe we can convince Chalmar that this was a COD?” Nisha giggled, trying to lighten the mood and pointedly ignoring the army behind them. The spectral emissary walked before the party, floating up and partially through the steps, and then vanishing the through the door. Several minutes passed and the door opened, though only partially, revealing a thin figure standing in the entryway gazing out at them warily. “What do you bring me,” A distinctly mortal voice called out, “And why does one of Mystra’s Chosen serve to make such a delivery?” [center]****[/center] [/QUOTE]
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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