The Forsaken One
Explorer
Zing zing skeet skeet thwap thwap y0.
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
- Thread starter Shemeska
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Shemeska
Adventurer
ONOZ! ZOMG! Faerie Dragons!
“Howler’s Crag.” Leobtav stated as he pointed to the map’s circled region. “It’s a location on Pandemonium’s layer of Cocytus. It’s also a more than a small mystery in terms of its origin.”
Ficklebarb spit an apple seed into the open mouth of a stuffed and mounted Arcadian skink, “But that’s not why we’re going there.”
“You see…” Leobtav retrieved the seed from his familiar’s improvised spittoon. “Howler’s Crag is a spire of rock and surrounding rubble, looking nothing-so-much like the broken rafters and foundation stones of a titan’s cottage. It’s a mountain built from gigantic, megalithic stones, old enough that erosion has fused much of it together, littering it with tunnels and blind shafts like a pockmarked cairn.”
“So what connection does this place have with writing in Carceri?” Clueless asked.
“Oh, you’ll see.” The professor said, holding up his hand and getting a twinkle in his eyes.
Ficklebarb set down his apple and paid closer attention to the story, sharing his master’s enthusiasm for the topic, probably because of their empathic link more than anything else.
“There are lots of legends surrounding the Crag,” Leobtav explained. “And one of them is that if you climb to the top of the crag, exposing yourself to the full force of the winds, and call out to a specific person, that regardless of where in the planes they are, whatever you cry out next, they’ll hear you.”
“Now that might or might not be true, but the whole theme of languages and communication swirls around the place, and for reasons that aren’t just spooky mythology. All of those caves that riddle the Crag, virtually all of them contain some form of writing carved into the rock walls, chiseled into the ceilings, or even burned or melted into place. Thousands, tens of thousands of languages of all ages and origins fill those caves, even dead ones or magical ones. No one knows why.”
“Some scholars think that the site is the location of a tomb or temple to a long dead god of language, or that a culture of giants constructed the Crag as a temple to lost words, thematically burying them in gentle repose within the screaming winds of the Howling Plane itself. Who’s to say.”
Tristol leapt to the connection. “You think you’ll be able to find a sample of Gautish there.”
“Precisely.” Leobtav nodded vigorously. “And not just that, but oftentimes a single cave will contain the same passage of writing replicated in more than one ancient tongue. I’m hoping to find the language and some key of deciphering it.”
“But how do you know that you’ll actually find it?” Toras asked with some skepticism. “It’s a sprawling site. It’s an entire mountain in the depths of a pitch black, screaming maelstrom, with who knows what lurking in the darkness. Even if it’s there, who’s to say that you’ll ever find it?”
“Because I already know that it’s there.”
Blind conviction, a zealot’s hope, or did the old man actually have something up his sleeve?
“Let me show you something.” He said, reaching for a collection of loose papers next to the map.
Spreading out a few of them, they appeared to be reconstructed copies of an older book or journal. Written in a very different hand than his own notes on the map that they’d seen, it was obvious that he hadn’t penned it.
“About five months ago an old colleague of mine in the Fraternity of Order told me that he’d seen these same letters before.” Leobtav gestured to the samples of Gautish. “But he hadn’t seen it in regards to the Gautiere of Carceri. No, he’d seen it within the fragmented notes of Ulricon, one of the often overlooked members of the faction’s earliest attempts to catalog the layers of the Lower Planes.”
“I can’t say I’ve heard of him before.” Tristol said, rubbing his chin.
“Don’t feel bad. It’s not a surprise that you haven’t, even as an accomplished wizard.” Leobtav said. “The Guvners don’t like to talk about him. His early accomplishments were really amazing, but eventually, well…”
“He went crazy in Pandemonium.” Ficklebarb interjected. “Then ran off and started a cult in the Abyss.”
Leobtav winced with embarrassment as his familiar acted like an unfiltered tap into his thoughts. “We –really- don’t like to talk about his later… work… so to speak.”
The professor glanced at the pseudodragon and the familiar responded by hiding his head behind the remaining core of his apple. Leobtav sighed and shook his head.
“As you were saying about Ulricon’s journal?” Clueless prompted.
“Ulricon’s journal.” Leobtav nodded. “Some portion of his work was cataloged, and then apparently misfiled and so spared a purge of his work three Factols later. Apparently some of the remaining material detailed his exploration of Cocytus, including Howler’s Crag.”
“And you’ve got a copy of it…” Clueless said as the others saw just where the old Guvner’s logic was leading.
“I managed to get a copy before it vanished into the sealed archives.” Leobtav explained. “I’m no longer a formal member of the Order, but I have enough friends that I managed to gain access to the library to copy it.”
“I knocked over a bronze statue of Raiden and he snuck into the library.” Ficklebarb explained.
“Well the Thunderer was true to his name.” Leobtav said as he looked at Ficklebarb again. “That’s all I’ll say.”
Nisha giggled at the familiar’s continual admissions. For a stodgy Guvner, the little red-scaled fellow was a perfect compliment, or an amazingly well done curse.
“But before the dragon gets me in any more trouble.”
Ficklebarb smiled and flitted his wings, “Quite the other way around book-worm.”
“But before the red terror gets me into any more trouble, yes, Ulricon found a sample of Gautish, and it was accompanied by a passage in Rilmani, a passage in an unnamed fiendish tongue, and an obscure branch of Sylvan.”
“Not bad.” Tristol said. “Not bad at all.”
It was beginning to sound like it was going to be anything but a snipe hunt in the depths. They had a treasure and they had a treasure map.
“So how many people are you bringing along on this trip?” Florian asked. “Sounds like you don’t need a whole expedition for this.”
“If only.” Leobtav admitted. “It’s not as easy as X marks the spot. Sadly, Ulricon’s notes don’t tell where at Howler’s Crag he found this particular cave. Time hasn’t been kind to his journals from that period, and he vanished hundreds of years ago, so we can’t ask him either.”
“So we’re back to hunting randomly?” Fyrehowl asked.
Leobtav shook his head, “Not quite. The remaining notes indicate several points of interest, spots that Ulricon found worthy of putting on a map, we just lack a key of what he found at each specific spot.”
There were a dozen or so spots listed on a much cruder map, or not given a location, but instead described in a brief travelogue. None of the descriptions gave a clear indication of which might have contained the Gautiere text, but it was a firm starting point, and well within the means of a group of scholars who’d already cut their teeth in the sandstorms of Minethys.
“Well, you’ve got my interest.” Clueless said. “So what role would you want us to fill beyond keeping watch for the natives, so to speak?”
“Keeping everyone on the expedition safe, and some of you have some unique talents that might help us scout the Crag more effectively and provide additional magical aid.”
They nodded and listened along as the ex-Guvner gave them an overly detailed rundown on the local fauna, additional and often superfluous details about environmental hazards, and some of the finer points of what their duties would be. The man still seemed shocked that they were viewing it as more a vacation than a job, but he wasn’t apparently going to look that gift horse in the mouth, and within the hour they’d signed and countersigned the contracts that he’d prepared for them.
“I appreciate this.” He said, shaking each of their hands in turn. “I really do.”
“Because otherwise we’d only have the introverted cleric slash paladin, a bard - in Pandemonium - the most useful thing in the world to have in such a place – and Mr Dodgy I hide in my own shadows McDodgy.”
Ficklebarb’s enthusiasm for the other non-scholars on the trip wasn’t exactly glowing, but if one had been there during the interviews, it might reasonably have been said that none of them were particularly glowing either, in any sense of the word. Limited funds didn’t allow for selectivity, and skill tended to overshadow a person’s past, or any shortcomings they might have had otherwise, and in the bard’s case, she wasn’t asking for any money, so who was going to argue.
“Such a glowing endorsement…” Fyrehowl deadpanned.
“Well, it’s possible that you’ll have a chance to meet with them before we leave.” Leobtav said with a blush. “They’re talented people, they’ve just had a checkered past in some cases. But I suppose a spotted, or awkward record for various reasons isn’t much of a concern when you’re fighting a pack of Howlers, or you need an extra set of eyes to watch for tanar’ri, or anything worse.”
It was Pandemonium after all. Any of those possibilities might be legitimate worries. But there were seven of them, and the others that had been hired for the same job of protecting the decidedly non-martially trained scholars, so at the least they had a solid line of defense against what the Howling Depths might throw at them. Yet unbeknownst to them at the time, that assumption was incredibly, fatally wrong, and what they’d find revealed in the depths of Cocytus was something that belonged neither there, nor anywhere else.
But the future was yet to be written, and so all things said, they left their meeting with Professor Leobtav in good spirits, with high expectations for the strangest vacation that any mortal with any sense of self-preservation might have conceived of. It was an intellectually rewarding endeavor, and despite Nisha’s hesitancy about the man’s past with the Fraternity of Order, he’d left a good impression on them. His familiar, Ficklebarb had obviously helped things along, especially so for the Xaositect who was rather taken in by the “red terror” to the point of ignoring her feelings about his other half, so to speak.
But perhaps it was also a lingering desire to retain some measure of cute draconic influence in their lives. Amberblue hadn’t left the Portal Jammer yet, but they were already having nostalgic thoughts intrude upon their minds.
“Ok.” Tristol admitted as they passed the Gymnasium. “The pseudodragon is pretty cute.”
“But he’s not a faerie dragon.” Nisha softy protested.
Florian shook her head and laughed, “For our future well being, praise Tempus.”
“Oh, I’m certain that we’ll see him again.” Clueless said, talking about Amberblue. “But we can’t be a permanent family for him.”
“Oh, we all understand that.” Florian said. “We’re just waiting for the eight hundred pound gorillon to make an appearance.”
“Who gets the lucky pleasure of going to Ysgard to face a flock of faerie dragons?” Fyrehowl said.
Florian snapped her fingers. “That’d be the one.”
All the time, Nisha was hopping up and down with a distinct clip-clop of hooves on the cobblestones, waving her hands and grinning. Well, there was one person who was going.
“Toras volunteers.” Florian said, pushing the fighter a bit forward with a bump of her hip.
“Yep.” Tristol agreed, much to Toras’s bewilderment. “Your god lives on Ysgard. He’ll save you if things go horribly wrong with a chorus of wishes. Hopefully.”
Toras had to admit he’d opened himself up to that when he’d told them that Andros lived on that plane. “Alright…”
Ten minutes and some rolled dice later, Florian and Fyrehowl were added to the list of those going to Ysgard while Clueless and Tristol were volunteered for cleaning up the Portal Jammer of any lingering remains of wish-induced chaos, and probably self-volunteered to avail themselves of the good liquor to toast their good fortune as well.
Brilliant sunlight flickered down through a canopy of evergreens and oaks on Ysgard’s first layer. The entire area seemed infused with a vibrant spark of life, spontaneity, and more than its fair share of Xaos if you knew where to look.
“You know,” Toras said as they wandered through the forest. “This is like the opposite of Elysium.”
Fyrehowl looked at him oddly. “How do you mean?”
“We’re wandering around Ysgard actively looking for faerie dragons.” He explained, tossing a rock into some bushes. “It’s like the opposite of Elysium’s effect on such things. We’re looking for trouble incarnate and by the gods we’re going to find some!”
“Why are we looking for trouble?” Amberblue asked out of pure naiveté.
“He’s just making a joke.” Fyrehowl said.
“Is there any trouble here though?” Amberblue asked again, curling around one of Nisha’s horns.
“Not really.” Toras said. “Not for us at least.”
“Maybe a stray drunken bariaur, or the occasional flock of…” Florian cut herself off.
“The occasional flock of what?” The dragon asked again, much like a small child repeatedly questioning an adult on random topics.
“Butterflies!” Florian answered, fumbling for an answer. After all, the faerie dragon had never seen a vicious flock of butterflies, so he wouldn’t know the difference.
Suddenly, as if on cue, several dozen butterflies burst from the bushes and darted out amidst the trees.
“Eeek!” Nisha and Amberblue both shouted out.
Of course, the butterflies did nothing, though one of them landed on an apple blossom high in a nearby tree, and from the flower’s perspective, it might have been posturing with considerable menace.
“Hey…” Nisha said, as she looked first at the butterfly and then to Florian. “You said they were vicious.”
“Yes and you’re not seven years old any more.” The cleric replied.
Still, something had conjured butterflies on demand…
A tiny, iridescent dragon’s head extended upside down from behind a pinecone directly above and in front of Toras. “Are you hiding too?”
Toras went pale for a moment. Trouble had found them.
“Hiding from what?” The fighter asked, returning the faerie-dragon’s puckish smile. “The butterflies?”
“No, no, something much worse.” Prismscales replied. “The giant squirrels.”
Above them from somewhere in the canopy there was a soft chorus of “Giant squirrels. Oh absolutely. That’s right. Horrible monsters they are. Spoooky.”
“Giant squirrels?” Fyrehowl asked.
“Yeah, you gotta watch for them.” Prismscales assured them as he descended on a pair of oversized butterfly wings. “Veeeeery dangerous.”
“Definitely. Bloodthirsty creatures. Gigantic! Ten feet tall!” The faerie dragon peanut gallery chattered in the canopy above.
Toras put his hands on his hips and looked heroic, a stance he normally had no trouble assuming, especially on a plane like Ysgard. “Oh, I can handle any giant squirrel.”
As if on cue, a dozen large acorns connected with Toras’s head from a dozen different spots in the forest.
“Clearly.” Florian snickered.
Bonk! Thunk! Thunk! A few acorns connected with the cleric’s head from another disparate spots in the canopy.
“The squirrels are very territorial you know.” Prismscales warned with a giggle.
Toras and Florian sighed as Nisha and Amberblue softly giggled. Fyrehowl chuckled and then moved aside a moment before an acorn would have connected with her forehead.
“You missed.” Came one of the unseen ‘giant squirrels’ voices.
“She’s sneaky like that.” Nisha whispered back up. “Keep trying!”
The lupinal’s ears drooped slightly.
“So who might you be, oh fearless hunter of giant squirrels?” Toras asked.
“My name’s Prismscales, grand conqueror of trolls, giants, and other big ugly things. And sometimes candy corn.”
“Candy corn! Vicious creatures they are! Very dangerous!” Echoed the peanut gallery once again with a chorus of giggles and fluttering butterfly wings.
A few pieces of candy corn rained down on Florian, though one piece landed in Amberblue’s deliberately open mouth.
“And who are you?” Prismscales asked Amberblue.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance King Prismscales.” Amberblue said with adopted regal flare as Nisha bowed with him still perched on one of her horns.
“I would be Amberblue, a foreign faerie dragon from far away lands, noted conqueror of pirates, pumpkins, and portal jammers!”
“Oooooh portal jammers! Very dangerous beasties! Scourges of wildspace!”
“Do you have stories to tell?” Prismscales asked.
Amberblue nodded.
“Do you like apples?”
Amberblue nodded rapidly with a gleam in his eyes.
“Do you like stories involving apples?”
Another nod.
“Would you like to help us redecorate Asgard tomorrow?”
Amberblue nodded a fourth time.
“I think he’s in!” Came one of the voices from the trees.
“Yay! Yippee! Apples for everyone! Candycorn for the wolfy thing!”
Candycorn rained down on Fyrehowl’s head.
“You guys won’t mind if Amberblue sticks around?” Toras asked.
Thunk! An acorn hit the fighter’s head.
“Of course we don’t mind.” Prismscales said. “We like him. I think your question upset the giant squirrels too.”
“Chitter chitter! Angry chitter! Gnashing of buckteeth!”
Amberblue grinned with absolute joy. “I wish I had some apple tarts like the cook from the Portal Jammer made that one time!”
“Yay! Apple tarts! Whee! One of us! One of us!”
-That- finally drew the peanut gallery out into the open, and Florian’s heart almost stopped and skipped a beat as fully two dozen butterfly winged dragons descended down to gorge themselves upon Amberblue’s conjured-into-existence pile of warm, cinnamon and powdered sugar dusted apple tarts.
Amberblue seemed genuinely happy, though in-between mouthfuls of warm apple, he did extract a promise from the group to come back and visit him and his newfound friends. And they had to bring stories to tell, and maybe some other tangible, ie edible, tribute or else the giant, bloodthirsty Ysgardian giant squirrels might become angered. The promise was made rather quickly amidst the expecting silence and attention of twenty-five wish-bearing faerie dragons.
It was also about that point that they collectively realized that without Tristol or Clueless in their company, they didn’t have a planeshift or gate available to quickly get back to the Outlands. They had a long walk and the whims of a planar compass ahead of them to find a gate, and to be certain the flock of butterfly-winged trouble followed them almost the entire way back.
Three hours, a rather persistent –and periodically giggling- “giant squirrel”, and several different shades of plaid later, they finally made it back to a gate to the Outlands, and from there back to Sigil. Truth be told, as whimsical as it might have been, going straight to Pandemonium might have been less stressful.
“I never want to visit that plane again.”
“The phrase “I wish” should be an excuse for murder.”
“I’m excused for going psycho on the first bloody ratatosk I see. I’ll throw them right off of Yggdrasil if they so much as look at me the wrong way.”
“I still want a faerie dragon familiar…”
Three days later and the time was near to leave with the expedition to Howler’s Crag. Arrangements had been made with the Portal Jammer’s staff to handle their absence, and legal arrangements had been made in the pessimistic but practical notion that something horrible might happen down in the Howling Depths. All that was left to do was to grab any remaining things they might need –faerie dragon familiar not included in such necessities despite one particular tiefling’s protests- and then to meet up with the expedition’s members.
Finally, an hour before their departure there was a knock on the door as a dark haired, pale-skinned moon elf wearing wizard’s robes stepped into the Jammer. A thick leather satchel for carrying spellbooks hung across one shoulder, and a large raven sat perched upon the other, taking in every face in the room from its perch. The familiar kept its eyes on the people in the taproom, but its master had his eyes entirely occupied on a list of names held in his hands.
“I’m looking for a group of mercenaries.”
“Howler’s Crag.” Leobtav stated as he pointed to the map’s circled region. “It’s a location on Pandemonium’s layer of Cocytus. It’s also a more than a small mystery in terms of its origin.”
Ficklebarb spit an apple seed into the open mouth of a stuffed and mounted Arcadian skink, “But that’s not why we’re going there.”
“You see…” Leobtav retrieved the seed from his familiar’s improvised spittoon. “Howler’s Crag is a spire of rock and surrounding rubble, looking nothing-so-much like the broken rafters and foundation stones of a titan’s cottage. It’s a mountain built from gigantic, megalithic stones, old enough that erosion has fused much of it together, littering it with tunnels and blind shafts like a pockmarked cairn.”
“So what connection does this place have with writing in Carceri?” Clueless asked.
“Oh, you’ll see.” The professor said, holding up his hand and getting a twinkle in his eyes.
Ficklebarb set down his apple and paid closer attention to the story, sharing his master’s enthusiasm for the topic, probably because of their empathic link more than anything else.
“There are lots of legends surrounding the Crag,” Leobtav explained. “And one of them is that if you climb to the top of the crag, exposing yourself to the full force of the winds, and call out to a specific person, that regardless of where in the planes they are, whatever you cry out next, they’ll hear you.”
“Now that might or might not be true, but the whole theme of languages and communication swirls around the place, and for reasons that aren’t just spooky mythology. All of those caves that riddle the Crag, virtually all of them contain some form of writing carved into the rock walls, chiseled into the ceilings, or even burned or melted into place. Thousands, tens of thousands of languages of all ages and origins fill those caves, even dead ones or magical ones. No one knows why.”
“Some scholars think that the site is the location of a tomb or temple to a long dead god of language, or that a culture of giants constructed the Crag as a temple to lost words, thematically burying them in gentle repose within the screaming winds of the Howling Plane itself. Who’s to say.”
Tristol leapt to the connection. “You think you’ll be able to find a sample of Gautish there.”
“Precisely.” Leobtav nodded vigorously. “And not just that, but oftentimes a single cave will contain the same passage of writing replicated in more than one ancient tongue. I’m hoping to find the language and some key of deciphering it.”
“But how do you know that you’ll actually find it?” Toras asked with some skepticism. “It’s a sprawling site. It’s an entire mountain in the depths of a pitch black, screaming maelstrom, with who knows what lurking in the darkness. Even if it’s there, who’s to say that you’ll ever find it?”
“Because I already know that it’s there.”
Blind conviction, a zealot’s hope, or did the old man actually have something up his sleeve?
“Let me show you something.” He said, reaching for a collection of loose papers next to the map.
Spreading out a few of them, they appeared to be reconstructed copies of an older book or journal. Written in a very different hand than his own notes on the map that they’d seen, it was obvious that he hadn’t penned it.
“About five months ago an old colleague of mine in the Fraternity of Order told me that he’d seen these same letters before.” Leobtav gestured to the samples of Gautish. “But he hadn’t seen it in regards to the Gautiere of Carceri. No, he’d seen it within the fragmented notes of Ulricon, one of the often overlooked members of the faction’s earliest attempts to catalog the layers of the Lower Planes.”
“I can’t say I’ve heard of him before.” Tristol said, rubbing his chin.
“Don’t feel bad. It’s not a surprise that you haven’t, even as an accomplished wizard.” Leobtav said. “The Guvners don’t like to talk about him. His early accomplishments were really amazing, but eventually, well…”
“He went crazy in Pandemonium.” Ficklebarb interjected. “Then ran off and started a cult in the Abyss.”
Leobtav winced with embarrassment as his familiar acted like an unfiltered tap into his thoughts. “We –really- don’t like to talk about his later… work… so to speak.”
The professor glanced at the pseudodragon and the familiar responded by hiding his head behind the remaining core of his apple. Leobtav sighed and shook his head.
“As you were saying about Ulricon’s journal?” Clueless prompted.
“Ulricon’s journal.” Leobtav nodded. “Some portion of his work was cataloged, and then apparently misfiled and so spared a purge of his work three Factols later. Apparently some of the remaining material detailed his exploration of Cocytus, including Howler’s Crag.”
“And you’ve got a copy of it…” Clueless said as the others saw just where the old Guvner’s logic was leading.
“I managed to get a copy before it vanished into the sealed archives.” Leobtav explained. “I’m no longer a formal member of the Order, but I have enough friends that I managed to gain access to the library to copy it.”
“I knocked over a bronze statue of Raiden and he snuck into the library.” Ficklebarb explained.
“Well the Thunderer was true to his name.” Leobtav said as he looked at Ficklebarb again. “That’s all I’ll say.”
Nisha giggled at the familiar’s continual admissions. For a stodgy Guvner, the little red-scaled fellow was a perfect compliment, or an amazingly well done curse.
“But before the dragon gets me in any more trouble.”
Ficklebarb smiled and flitted his wings, “Quite the other way around book-worm.”
“But before the red terror gets me into any more trouble, yes, Ulricon found a sample of Gautish, and it was accompanied by a passage in Rilmani, a passage in an unnamed fiendish tongue, and an obscure branch of Sylvan.”
“Not bad.” Tristol said. “Not bad at all.”
It was beginning to sound like it was going to be anything but a snipe hunt in the depths. They had a treasure and they had a treasure map.
“So how many people are you bringing along on this trip?” Florian asked. “Sounds like you don’t need a whole expedition for this.”
“If only.” Leobtav admitted. “It’s not as easy as X marks the spot. Sadly, Ulricon’s notes don’t tell where at Howler’s Crag he found this particular cave. Time hasn’t been kind to his journals from that period, and he vanished hundreds of years ago, so we can’t ask him either.”
“So we’re back to hunting randomly?” Fyrehowl asked.
Leobtav shook his head, “Not quite. The remaining notes indicate several points of interest, spots that Ulricon found worthy of putting on a map, we just lack a key of what he found at each specific spot.”
There were a dozen or so spots listed on a much cruder map, or not given a location, but instead described in a brief travelogue. None of the descriptions gave a clear indication of which might have contained the Gautiere text, but it was a firm starting point, and well within the means of a group of scholars who’d already cut their teeth in the sandstorms of Minethys.
“Well, you’ve got my interest.” Clueless said. “So what role would you want us to fill beyond keeping watch for the natives, so to speak?”
“Keeping everyone on the expedition safe, and some of you have some unique talents that might help us scout the Crag more effectively and provide additional magical aid.”
They nodded and listened along as the ex-Guvner gave them an overly detailed rundown on the local fauna, additional and often superfluous details about environmental hazards, and some of the finer points of what their duties would be. The man still seemed shocked that they were viewing it as more a vacation than a job, but he wasn’t apparently going to look that gift horse in the mouth, and within the hour they’d signed and countersigned the contracts that he’d prepared for them.
“I appreciate this.” He said, shaking each of their hands in turn. “I really do.”
“Because otherwise we’d only have the introverted cleric slash paladin, a bard - in Pandemonium - the most useful thing in the world to have in such a place – and Mr Dodgy I hide in my own shadows McDodgy.”
Ficklebarb’s enthusiasm for the other non-scholars on the trip wasn’t exactly glowing, but if one had been there during the interviews, it might reasonably have been said that none of them were particularly glowing either, in any sense of the word. Limited funds didn’t allow for selectivity, and skill tended to overshadow a person’s past, or any shortcomings they might have had otherwise, and in the bard’s case, she wasn’t asking for any money, so who was going to argue.
“Such a glowing endorsement…” Fyrehowl deadpanned.
“Well, it’s possible that you’ll have a chance to meet with them before we leave.” Leobtav said with a blush. “They’re talented people, they’ve just had a checkered past in some cases. But I suppose a spotted, or awkward record for various reasons isn’t much of a concern when you’re fighting a pack of Howlers, or you need an extra set of eyes to watch for tanar’ri, or anything worse.”
It was Pandemonium after all. Any of those possibilities might be legitimate worries. But there were seven of them, and the others that had been hired for the same job of protecting the decidedly non-martially trained scholars, so at the least they had a solid line of defense against what the Howling Depths might throw at them. Yet unbeknownst to them at the time, that assumption was incredibly, fatally wrong, and what they’d find revealed in the depths of Cocytus was something that belonged neither there, nor anywhere else.
But the future was yet to be written, and so all things said, they left their meeting with Professor Leobtav in good spirits, with high expectations for the strangest vacation that any mortal with any sense of self-preservation might have conceived of. It was an intellectually rewarding endeavor, and despite Nisha’s hesitancy about the man’s past with the Fraternity of Order, he’d left a good impression on them. His familiar, Ficklebarb had obviously helped things along, especially so for the Xaositect who was rather taken in by the “red terror” to the point of ignoring her feelings about his other half, so to speak.
But perhaps it was also a lingering desire to retain some measure of cute draconic influence in their lives. Amberblue hadn’t left the Portal Jammer yet, but they were already having nostalgic thoughts intrude upon their minds.
“Ok.” Tristol admitted as they passed the Gymnasium. “The pseudodragon is pretty cute.”
“But he’s not a faerie dragon.” Nisha softy protested.
Florian shook her head and laughed, “For our future well being, praise Tempus.”
“Oh, I’m certain that we’ll see him again.” Clueless said, talking about Amberblue. “But we can’t be a permanent family for him.”
“Oh, we all understand that.” Florian said. “We’re just waiting for the eight hundred pound gorillon to make an appearance.”
“Who gets the lucky pleasure of going to Ysgard to face a flock of faerie dragons?” Fyrehowl said.
Florian snapped her fingers. “That’d be the one.”
All the time, Nisha was hopping up and down with a distinct clip-clop of hooves on the cobblestones, waving her hands and grinning. Well, there was one person who was going.
“Toras volunteers.” Florian said, pushing the fighter a bit forward with a bump of her hip.
“Yep.” Tristol agreed, much to Toras’s bewilderment. “Your god lives on Ysgard. He’ll save you if things go horribly wrong with a chorus of wishes. Hopefully.”
Toras had to admit he’d opened himself up to that when he’d told them that Andros lived on that plane. “Alright…”
Ten minutes and some rolled dice later, Florian and Fyrehowl were added to the list of those going to Ysgard while Clueless and Tristol were volunteered for cleaning up the Portal Jammer of any lingering remains of wish-induced chaos, and probably self-volunteered to avail themselves of the good liquor to toast their good fortune as well.
***
Brilliant sunlight flickered down through a canopy of evergreens and oaks on Ysgard’s first layer. The entire area seemed infused with a vibrant spark of life, spontaneity, and more than its fair share of Xaos if you knew where to look.
“You know,” Toras said as they wandered through the forest. “This is like the opposite of Elysium.”
Fyrehowl looked at him oddly. “How do you mean?”
“We’re wandering around Ysgard actively looking for faerie dragons.” He explained, tossing a rock into some bushes. “It’s like the opposite of Elysium’s effect on such things. We’re looking for trouble incarnate and by the gods we’re going to find some!”
“Why are we looking for trouble?” Amberblue asked out of pure naiveté.
“He’s just making a joke.” Fyrehowl said.
“Is there any trouble here though?” Amberblue asked again, curling around one of Nisha’s horns.
“Not really.” Toras said. “Not for us at least.”
“Maybe a stray drunken bariaur, or the occasional flock of…” Florian cut herself off.
“The occasional flock of what?” The dragon asked again, much like a small child repeatedly questioning an adult on random topics.
“Butterflies!” Florian answered, fumbling for an answer. After all, the faerie dragon had never seen a vicious flock of butterflies, so he wouldn’t know the difference.
Suddenly, as if on cue, several dozen butterflies burst from the bushes and darted out amidst the trees.
“Eeek!” Nisha and Amberblue both shouted out.
Of course, the butterflies did nothing, though one of them landed on an apple blossom high in a nearby tree, and from the flower’s perspective, it might have been posturing with considerable menace.
“Hey…” Nisha said, as she looked first at the butterfly and then to Florian. “You said they were vicious.”
“Yes and you’re not seven years old any more.” The cleric replied.
Still, something had conjured butterflies on demand…
A tiny, iridescent dragon’s head extended upside down from behind a pinecone directly above and in front of Toras. “Are you hiding too?”
Toras went pale for a moment. Trouble had found them.
“Hiding from what?” The fighter asked, returning the faerie-dragon’s puckish smile. “The butterflies?”
“No, no, something much worse.” Prismscales replied. “The giant squirrels.”
Above them from somewhere in the canopy there was a soft chorus of “Giant squirrels. Oh absolutely. That’s right. Horrible monsters they are. Spoooky.”
“Giant squirrels?” Fyrehowl asked.
“Yeah, you gotta watch for them.” Prismscales assured them as he descended on a pair of oversized butterfly wings. “Veeeeery dangerous.”
“Definitely. Bloodthirsty creatures. Gigantic! Ten feet tall!” The faerie dragon peanut gallery chattered in the canopy above.
Toras put his hands on his hips and looked heroic, a stance he normally had no trouble assuming, especially on a plane like Ysgard. “Oh, I can handle any giant squirrel.”
As if on cue, a dozen large acorns connected with Toras’s head from a dozen different spots in the forest.
“Clearly.” Florian snickered.
Bonk! Thunk! Thunk! A few acorns connected with the cleric’s head from another disparate spots in the canopy.
“The squirrels are very territorial you know.” Prismscales warned with a giggle.
Toras and Florian sighed as Nisha and Amberblue softly giggled. Fyrehowl chuckled and then moved aside a moment before an acorn would have connected with her forehead.
“You missed.” Came one of the unseen ‘giant squirrels’ voices.
“She’s sneaky like that.” Nisha whispered back up. “Keep trying!”
The lupinal’s ears drooped slightly.
“So who might you be, oh fearless hunter of giant squirrels?” Toras asked.
“My name’s Prismscales, grand conqueror of trolls, giants, and other big ugly things. And sometimes candy corn.”
“Candy corn! Vicious creatures they are! Very dangerous!” Echoed the peanut gallery once again with a chorus of giggles and fluttering butterfly wings.
A few pieces of candy corn rained down on Florian, though one piece landed in Amberblue’s deliberately open mouth.
“And who are you?” Prismscales asked Amberblue.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance King Prismscales.” Amberblue said with adopted regal flare as Nisha bowed with him still perched on one of her horns.
“I would be Amberblue, a foreign faerie dragon from far away lands, noted conqueror of pirates, pumpkins, and portal jammers!”
“Oooooh portal jammers! Very dangerous beasties! Scourges of wildspace!”
“Do you have stories to tell?” Prismscales asked.
Amberblue nodded.
“Do you like apples?”
Amberblue nodded rapidly with a gleam in his eyes.
“Do you like stories involving apples?”
Another nod.
“Would you like to help us redecorate Asgard tomorrow?”
Amberblue nodded a fourth time.
“I think he’s in!” Came one of the voices from the trees.
“Yay! Yippee! Apples for everyone! Candycorn for the wolfy thing!”
Candycorn rained down on Fyrehowl’s head.
“You guys won’t mind if Amberblue sticks around?” Toras asked.
Thunk! An acorn hit the fighter’s head.
“Of course we don’t mind.” Prismscales said. “We like him. I think your question upset the giant squirrels too.”
“Chitter chitter! Angry chitter! Gnashing of buckteeth!”
Amberblue grinned with absolute joy. “I wish I had some apple tarts like the cook from the Portal Jammer made that one time!”
“Yay! Apple tarts! Whee! One of us! One of us!”
-That- finally drew the peanut gallery out into the open, and Florian’s heart almost stopped and skipped a beat as fully two dozen butterfly winged dragons descended down to gorge themselves upon Amberblue’s conjured-into-existence pile of warm, cinnamon and powdered sugar dusted apple tarts.
Amberblue seemed genuinely happy, though in-between mouthfuls of warm apple, he did extract a promise from the group to come back and visit him and his newfound friends. And they had to bring stories to tell, and maybe some other tangible, ie edible, tribute or else the giant, bloodthirsty Ysgardian giant squirrels might become angered. The promise was made rather quickly amidst the expecting silence and attention of twenty-five wish-bearing faerie dragons.
It was also about that point that they collectively realized that without Tristol or Clueless in their company, they didn’t have a planeshift or gate available to quickly get back to the Outlands. They had a long walk and the whims of a planar compass ahead of them to find a gate, and to be certain the flock of butterfly-winged trouble followed them almost the entire way back.
Three hours, a rather persistent –and periodically giggling- “giant squirrel”, and several different shades of plaid later, they finally made it back to a gate to the Outlands, and from there back to Sigil. Truth be told, as whimsical as it might have been, going straight to Pandemonium might have been less stressful.
“I never want to visit that plane again.”
“The phrase “I wish” should be an excuse for murder.”
“I’m excused for going psycho on the first bloody ratatosk I see. I’ll throw them right off of Yggdrasil if they so much as look at me the wrong way.”
“I still want a faerie dragon familiar…”
***
Three days later and the time was near to leave with the expedition to Howler’s Crag. Arrangements had been made with the Portal Jammer’s staff to handle their absence, and legal arrangements had been made in the pessimistic but practical notion that something horrible might happen down in the Howling Depths. All that was left to do was to grab any remaining things they might need –faerie dragon familiar not included in such necessities despite one particular tiefling’s protests- and then to meet up with the expedition’s members.
Finally, an hour before their departure there was a knock on the door as a dark haired, pale-skinned moon elf wearing wizard’s robes stepped into the Jammer. A thick leather satchel for carrying spellbooks hung across one shoulder, and a large raven sat perched upon the other, taking in every face in the room from its perch. The familiar kept its eyes on the people in the taproom, but its master had his eyes entirely occupied on a list of names held in his hands.
“I’m looking for a group of mercenaries.”
Burningspear
First Post
funny and nicely done updates... 
A Crazy Fool
First Post
I Wish I had a Faerie dragon familiar.
Burningspear
First Post
And I wish the writer wrote a bit more/ faster 
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