“This isn’t good.” Ankita said in a singsong whisper as they snuck glances up and over the lip of the vale.
“It’s open ground,” Velkyn agreed. “There’s nothing to hide behind and ten jink says that there’s at least one adult female medusa back in the cave. If the little one doesn’t turn us into lawn ornaments, she probably will.”
“I’m not killing a kid!” Victor whispered harshly.
“No one said –you- had to.” Inva said with a smirk. “But I think we’d be crazy to attack them right out. Take a hostage or try to bargain with them straight is probably safer.”
Behind them all, next to Ankita, the mezzoloth was drooling on the ground uncontrollably as it sniffed at the air. It seemed overly eager for bloodshed. It wasn’t going to get it however.
Velkyn glanced to Ankita. “You contact one of the males down there, get his attention and try to see if you can strike some kind of deal with them for the tile.”
“Assuming that they have it of course.” Marcus added.
Ankita nodded and glanced up over the edge of the hill till she could see one of the meadars.
Don’t be alarmed, we only wish to talk.
One of the meadars immediately tensed, stepped back and raised his spear. The other looked at him with some alarm, then back to the two children.
We mean you no harm, though we could have done so. We did nothing of the sort, and that should count for something. We wish to bargain with you for something we suspect is in your possession. If it is not, we will leave.
The first of the meadars whispered something swiftly to his fellow. The other man nodded, quickly gathered the two children, and ushered them back towards the cave.
“What’s happening up there?” Victor asked in a whisper.
“Sssshhh!” Ankita said, waving him away brusquely.
The first meadar down below was scanning the tops of the lichen-covered hills, looking for the source of the voice that was speaking to him. Finally, he called out in a mix of draconic and planar common.
“I know what you are looking for, and we are willing to deal for it. You and no more than one or two others come down, alone and unarmed, and we will bring you to our wife. It is her decision ultimately.”
Ankita looked at the others. The mezzoloth was unlikely to allow her to go down without it at her side.
“Victor, you go down there with me.” Ankita said before looking at the mezzoloth.
You come with me as well. And stay close.
The sorceress called down to the meadar once more.
Very well. We’re coming down now.
The three of them emerged up over the rim of hills and slowly descended towards the single meadar. The man kept his spear lowered, but he seemed capable of using it with but a moment’s action. As soon as the trio had approached and made no threatening actions, he glanced over to his right. A third meadar suddenly appeared as an invisibility spell faded, this one covered with elaborate designs painted onto his scales and a number of charms hung around his neck.
“Come with us.” The meadar sorcerer said as he gestured towards the cave.
“There’s a third one, cr*p.” Velkyn said as he watched the two meadars walk Ankita, Victor and the mezzoloth into the cave mouth.
Inva nodded as she relaxed. “That one probably knew we were here. They likely waited to see if we would try anything. We saved ourselves trouble by not.”
The two meadars led their guests into the cave towards a glittering magical glow at its rear. There, a bed of animal furs was surrounded by several piles of valuables and a number of musical instruments. Seated in the midst of it all was a slim woman dressed in little more than her husbands, but with a sash across her chest and a veil that hung across her face.
“Greetings. You were wise not to resort to violence, my first husband had been watching you for some time.” The medusa’s voice was soft, beautiful, and nearly hypnotic; the voice of a singer or a bard. Indeed they had heard her earlier singing in the cave.
Victor smiled and bowed. “You seem to already know what it is that we’re looking for.”
She held up a slim metallic tile. “Yes,” she gave a sigh and then a soft shrug. “And you are neither the first nor the last who will likely come looking for it. But, you are some of the wiser ones to do so.”
“Where are we? Do you know?” Ankita asked her.
The medusa held up a hand. “That’s not for me to speak of. You will find out in time, one way or another. But I have something you need, and I wish to know what you will offer me for it.”
Marcus gathered a sizable collection of the jewelry that he had collected at the bottom of the trapped pool near where they had found the second tile. “Would you be interested in any of these?”
“It’s a start.” She said, as she examined a number of the finer pieces.
How about the mezzoloth? Ankita said telepathically into the fighter’s mind.
We need to get rid of him somehow, and turning it to stone for the medusa and her family to eat…
Marcus blinked and glanced over at the sorceress.
I’m serious.
The mezzoloth was still, obedient, and clueless as it clacked its mandibles at random and left a small puddle of drool upon the ground.
Ankita looked to the medusa.
Would you accept the mezzoloth as food? We step back, avert our eyes and you petrify him? He’s a liability to us.
The medusa blinked beneath the veil over her face and then slowly nodded. “That will suffice.”
Ankita and Marcus both stepped back and away from the lesser yugoloth and closed their eyes tight. The fiend perceived nothing at first when the medusa abruptly removed her veil and stared directly at him. It stiffened for a moment but nothing happened as it immediately realized that it was being betrayed. It snarled and started to turn to strike at its mistress, but the medusa’s gaze struck again and with a crackling sound the fiend’s muscle, chitin and viscera of solidified evil turned fast to stone.
The medusa smiled as the deed was done and reattached her veil while the serpents about her head licked at the air and the scent of their next likely meal.
“You may open your eyes now.” She said in her mellifluous voice. “Here, take what you have purchased and leave peacefully.”
Ankita and Marcus both slowly opened their eyes and saw that the mezzoloth was turned fast to stone. They also saw the smiles that played across the multiple serpentine faces of the medusa’s head-serpents. Their deal was done. They thanked her, took the slim metal tile she handed to them, and then they left without a word.
Before they had even left the cave, Ankita was telling the others what all had transpired: they had the tile, they had gotten rid of her pet mezzoloth, and they had dealt with the medusa without incident.
They emerged up atop the hill holding the last tile up like a war trophy. With it in hand, they were smiling with unconstrained glee as they made the trek back towards the central chamber where the incomplete teleport circle awaited them now that they had everything they needed to activate it.
“And now maybe we’ll find out why the hell we’re here in the first place.” Marcus said as he walked into the room.
None of them had noticed the sheen of liquid across the floor just past the entrance.
“Hell. I want to know how much I’m getting paid for this mess.” Inva said with a chuckle.
“Well, we’ll… AAAAGGGHHHH!” Victor stopped and screamed.
A jagged lance of green energy struck him in the back and left a furrow in armor and flesh alike, dissolving their substance to dust.
“Holy Sh*t!” Velkyn shouted as a pale beam struck Marcus and petrified him as fast as the medusa’s gaze would have.
Trailing drool from its mouth, a fleshy orb perhaps five feet across hung in the air above the entrance, its tooth studded maw open, and its central eye closed shut while its eye tipped tentacles turned downwards. A beholder, it had been lurking in ambush when they had stepped into the chamber.
There were confused and frightened shouts from back in the corridor as Francesca, Garibaldi, and Ankita watched in dismay as their companions were assaulted by a being they couldn’t see.
Inva dove for cover as the eye tyrant moved towards the center of the room where it could fire its deadly eye-rays in a wider area. Victor gawked at the statue that had formerly been his brother before turning, extending his hand, and incanting a prayer to his deity while Velkyn hastily began to cast as well.
The beholder’s eyes pulsed again as the others attacked. As a beam of brilliant golden light shot from Victor’s hand, the beholder focused two eyes on the cleric. While Victor’s spell burned at the eye-tyrant’s flesh, one of its own rays connected with his arm and caused the flesh to erupt in a torrent of blisters and sores.
Velkyn finished his spell and sent a flurry of glowing missiles to slam into the beholder, but while it caused obvious injuries, the beast fired two of its eyes at him in return. One of them missed and one of them connected, but whatever the intended effect, it failed to cause him any obvious harm.
That was not however the case with Garibaldi, as he and Ankita rushed into the room. The beholder’s eyes focused on them both and each was struck by a single beam. Garibaldi was tossed backwards against the wall like a rag doll, but the beam that was aimed at the sorceress fizzled out before it struck her.
Unseen somehow by the eye-tyrant, Inva darted beneath it and jabbed her blade upwards into its guts. The beholder jerked in pain, roaring as blood leaked from the site of the tiefling’s stab, and it abruptly hovered to one side in order to focus on whatever had caused it such harm. Inva however was nowhere to be seen by the time it turned its eyestalks to where she had been.
Ankita held out her hand and a jagged bolt of lightning lanced out to snarl around the already burned and bleeding beholder. It quivered in the air and rotated to single her out in the gaze of its magic nullifying central eye, but it never had the chance as Garibaldi had recovered, charged, and jabbed his sword into its side. The eyes widened in pain, its pupils dilated in shock, and finally the aberration dropped from the air with a loud splattering noise to land atop the fighter as its innards spilled across the floor.
Garibaldi waved an arm and sputtered as he struggled to free himself from under a flap of the dead beholder’s sagging flesh. Thankfully he had not been caught in the spill of its innards, and he inhaled deeply as Velkyn and Ankita pulled him free.
“Well… that went smoothly.” Inva said with a smirk as she looked at the stony form of Marcus next to the splattered remains of the beholder.
“Then next time you can be first in line. Or you can help me carry him.” Victor said.
“Carry him?” Francesca asked.
Inva spoke first, guessing Victors intent. “The medusa’s husbands. They can turn people back from stone, but it’ll probably cost us.”
Victor glanced at the sack that his brother had. It still had a number of items and an uncounted amount of coin that he’d collected back from the one room with the pool. It would hopefully be enough to have the meadars return him to his normal self.
“We’ll be back.” The cleric said. “It’s not far. You’re welcome to come along, but otherwise just stay here and don’t get yourselves eaten.”
Inva snapped her teeth together repeatedly as she left.
Francesca, Inva, and Victor left with the statue that was formerly Marcus. Garibaldi stayed behind, carefully watching the exits and half expecting for something else to barge into the room on an empty stomach, with bloody fangs or claws raised and ready. Nothing actually appeared as they waited, but they did hear something as the footsteps of their departed companions faded from their ears: a mumbled conversation from overhead and a soft giggle.
Ankita and Velkyn glanced at one another and then up to the opening that lead towards the pair of dragons they had met earlier. They blinked, gawked and then exchanged wide eyed glanced before they both hastily moved away from the area and tried not to think about what might have been going on between the pair of wyrms. Garibaldi wasn’t quite so quick to pick up on it, but when he did he dashed to the opposite side of the room with a look of terror on his face. Draconic pillowtalk, and possibly more, apparently didn’t agree with him.
Ankita shook her head and gave an embarrassed chuckle while they continued to wait. Velkyn approached her and made sure that what he said wasn’t overheard by Victor’s cohort.
“I have something to ask you Ankita.” The half-drow said. “I've been counting. And the number of times that you’ve been hurling out heat metal spells, levitating, and using telekinesis, it’s just not possible unless you’re a damn deal more than you say you are.”
Ankita twitched but didn’t immediately respond. Velkyn continued.
"Either you're considerably above the level of power as a sorceress that you claim you are, or you’re something else entirely. The spells, the silver, and your
pet that you had for a while. Are you behind this entire plan, or just not being straight?"
“I don’t have any more of an idea why I’m here than you do.” Ankita answered quickly with a nervous edge in her voice.
“That didn’t entirely answer my question.” The wizard replied. “Is there something you need to tell me, before you constitute a danger to me?”
She didn’t give an immediate answer again and Velkyn continued.
“If you are - what I think you are - then at the end of this. I don't know you and you don't know me. Family history."
“A shame you think that way,” Ankita replied. “But tell me because I’m curious now, what is it that you think I am? If you’ll venture a guess I’ll confirm or deny it for you gladly.”
“Well, from what I've seen - either you're a tiefer with the worst possible showing of your blood, only receiving the allergy, or you're a loth. Considering the pet you had at your heels, I’d say that you’re at least part if not full.”
Ankita sighed, but a slight smirk crossed her face as she replied. “Well, I’ll admit you’re right. I am part loth. But I have to say I think we do, and will, know each other.”
Velkyn blinked as Ankita reached down to a chain at her neck and pulled out a pendant hanging at its end. Shaped like a tiny, glimmering star, it had been given to her by her mother. It was uniquely hers, and the wizard recognized it immediately.
“Phaedra? You little slich!” He exclaimed in a forceful whisper.
“Slich?” She replied with a suppressed giggle. “Now Velk, that’s a new one. Why would you go and call me a slich? How rude”
She was having far too much fun with his reaction, but he was grinning as well, even though he was cursing at her in at least 10 languages in a harsh whisper as Garibaldi glanced over them. Phaedra tucked the pendant away as the fighter shrugged and went back to looking at the doors. She raised her hood slightly and turned so that Garibaldi wouldn’t notice. Her features blurred and shifted. Velkyn gave an incredulous laugh and glanced away. It was indeed her.
She snapped back to her assumed form with a grin.
“Well, now you see why I wouldn’t reveal myself, and why I want to keep it from the rest of the party? I’ll keep this up as long as I can, at least till I know that they’d trust me more in my real form. You’re not angry at me, are you?”
Velkyn chuckled more and shook his head. “No, it’s understandable. But eventually you’ll have to say something to the others. That’s not my issue to deal with, so I won’t say anything.”
Phaedra, once again Ankita, nodded her head thankfully and moved away a few feet as the others returned with Marcus once more among the fully living.
“Welcome back to the world of the fleshy.” Velkyn said as they arrived.
“Greedy sons of…” Marcus muttered as he hefted a largely empty sack of valuables.
“Hey,” Inva said with a shrug. “They had a service, we had a need. Nothing wrong with that. Medusas aren’t exactly renowned for being self-effacing benefactors.”
Victor headed off any further argument.
“But at least we have what we need, and frankly this place is getting to be a bit too confining. I want to leave. I want to find out what all of this is about. And honestly I just want to see the sky again.”
There were no complaints as they gathered around the pedestal and looked down at the teleport circle. With trepidation, they lay the five individual tiles into place to complete the symbols within the unfinished diagram at their feet. As they slipped into place, the tiles seemed to subsume into the metal of the floor and a glow spread outwards to envelop the confines of the mystical diagram.
“It’s active.” Velkyn said warily. “Not sure where the hell it’s going, but it’s active.”
Glancing at each other, one by one they stepped into the circle and vanished.
***
“Please step back and keep your hands away from your weapons. No casting either. Move slowly, act calm, and there won’t be any reason to react harshly.”
They couldn’t see her or make out any details of their location, but they heard the woman’s voice even before the flash of light from the teleport circle had fully faded.
Slowly the light receded and their eyes adjusted. They stood in a small, utterly nondescript chamber carved out of the same dull metal as everything else that they had already seen. There were no doors, and there was no evidence of a second teleport circle. There was only the person who stood in front of them.
She was human, perhaps planetouched in a fairly unobtrusive manner, dressed in finely fitted leather armor and a long cloak. The silvery tip of the saber she held in her right hand danced between each of the group’s members, and her left hand was equally extended and held out in an arcane gesture. Flickers of magic sparkled on the tips of her fingers.
Velkyn blinked. “Just what the hell is going on here?”
The woman’s pale blue eyes calmly regarded them. Her hands didn’t waver in the slightest as they all looked back at her with unsteady emotions, perhaps some anger, and definitely confusion. Nearly as long as her cloak, her blue-black hair extended back from her head, nearly down to her ankles.
“You’ve survived and I must congratulate you.” She said calmly but firmly. “We’ve been watching your progress, and we’ve been pleased with what we saw.”
“Just who the hell is ‘we’?” Ankita asked.
“And what was with the threat to kill and devour one of us if we didn’t perform up to a standard?” Victor asked warily as he watched her blade. “There’s no way that I would have agreed to willingly do anything like this, that book with our signatures notwithstanding.”
“Oh, you agreed to this.” She said with a grin. “Some of you came to us, others of you we approached separately.”
They relaxed ever so slightly and listened to her explain.
“Everything you saw with your signature was legitimate, though all the rubbish about killing and devouring one of you, well, it gave you motivation even if it wasn’t true. Had you died in there you would have been raised and sent on your way, the cost deducted from your initial payment…” She glanced at Inva, “…but it would have meant you’d no longer be in our employment. This was all a test to see how well you worked together, but the details aren’t truly mine to give.”
“So who are we working for, and who exactly are you?” Velkyn asked.
The raven-haired woman had never once relaxed her guard even as she explained things to them.
“You have to understand that I’m just a middle player in all of this. I’m here simply to calm you down and explain the briefest of things before you get all of your questions formally answered. Pardon me if I’m all rather curt about this since not all of those questions are for me to answer even if I knew the whole story myself.” She said before stepped back slightly.
“Now, if you’ll allow me a moment to put away my blade, I’ll take you to meet our mutual employer.”
They relaxed, she snapped her fingers, and they were gone in a flash.
***
I've been trying to do a better job of proof reading these updates lately. Hopefully it shows at least a little bit.
'Seemed, seemed, and seemingly' all in one uber-claused sentence. Is there nothing that actually *is* what it appears to be? 
