Miles Pilitus
First Post
This story-hour might be a little different then most. For our group's most recent game, one of the characters has in his possession the book "Chaser's Journal," in which the character, Abraxas Spellchaser, records the adventures that happen to him and his group of friends. Each episode is a week of game, and I write up an extended summary of the game between each session. The first post is a bit of prologue, several of the characters where brought into Planescape from another campaign and Episode 0 is their transition from one setting to another.
Episode 0 – The Last Fools
“Simon, I’m beginning to doubt the sanity of the designers of this hovel.” I hop over the mural of the twin lions on the ground, giving the pattern a sign of dire salute as I float over the trap that had just gotten the legs of my companion and his better half.
“This place reeks of arcane magic Abe. I’m coming to the conclusion that the use can not help but imbalance the mind.” Simon and Remé were kneeling down on the stairs to the next level each checking the scratches that the claws of the lions had left in their legs.
I tear off a strip of linen and help the pair tie bandages tight around their calves to reduce the bleeding, and grumble, “Says the person who needed a few weeks of personal time to prevent his thoughts from leaking out of his own head.” I offer them both a hand to help them get back to their feet. “Call it power or life my friend, I’m not sure there’s actually enough space in some-one's bone-box for them to actually be all ‘there.’ But I’m talking about seriously wacky, ‘I’m-touched-by-Gyron’ level of off, and –”
“I know what you mean, man. It’s all just soo... peaceful. My lord pancake has certainly blessed this house.” It seems Xallis had decided to head back into the house and gotten hit by the emotion control again. He was now slumping against the frame of the door just shy of the mural. He pulls himself off the frame and starts to walk forward, but I interrupt him this time and move back over to him and place a hand on his chest.
How am I avoiding the mural? Simple, I’m not touching the ground. My wings shimmer in the air behind me, blue constructs of magic holding me aloft. “Let me do something first.” I go back to the side of the mural with the stairs on it, land just past the mural and place my hand next to the mural, then close and open my eyes. It’s blurry for a few seconds as all of the flowing patterns of magic swirl and interpose themselves over the physical reality before my mind has seen enough to interpret what it’s seeing. I’m looking at the trap, and the trap is looking back at me, four pairs of eyes peering out from the magical pattern of the trap. Spirits of one sort or another, called to power this trap. Wait my eyes say as they add another level of detail to this puzzle, bound here to form this trap. “It’s a pair of snakes, worked into the stones of the mural.”
“Snakes, Mister Abe? Why make snakes into lions?” Remé had a point, but Simon answered the question for both of us.
“Lions are cats, and would probably be more likely to just lie there and sleep. Step on a snake and it will lash out, that’s its nature. Maybe you could just help Xallis over the mural and avoid this trap.”
“No, they’re caged here. And I may regret it, but I’m going to try and open their cage.” I lean a little harder into my hand and send trickles of my power through the magic. I feel into the magical construct, searching around until I find the catch. It takes some time, and I feel like I’m drifting there, disconnected from my physical form, but eventually, I find something solid in the magical construct. It feels like a pair of jaws set into the tails. Chains. Well, I know how to deal with those. I whisper the words of unmaking, pointing my will at the bindings that keep the spirits tied into the stone on the ground. I feel it as it happens, first one, then both chains dissolving beneath my power.
Now the stones of the mural begin to glow as the two lions turn into a pair of black and green patterned vipers. As one, they turn to me and speak, “Thank.” “You,” then begin to dissolve into light as their summoning spell expires. I let my vision drift down to my hand. Oh, right. Nature. It looked like I stuck my hand in a nest of feral cats. Or at least, that was my last thought before I passed out.
“Yohoo, Abe, you awake now?” I hear Xallis’ voice as I emerge from the black place.
“I am, thanks Xallis.” I look around me at the stone stairway. It seems I haven’t been moved since I passed out from the blood loss.
“Abe, those glowing, snake things said something before they vanished. What did they say?” Simon asked, offering me a hand to stand up.
“They thanked me. In Upper Trade. Must have been Beasts.” The souls of animals and a whole bunch of people who worship gods of the wild get reborn as animals in the Beastlands, and all of the animals there talk.
“Mister Abe, that word sounded emphasized. What do you mean, Beasts?”
“Oh! I know this one. I think.” It seems the emotion calming couldn’t completely beat back the force that was Xallis. “Servants of the Beast Gods, right?”
“Something like that.” I turned my focus in for a moment, making sure all of my own spell constructs were properly in place.
“I’ve taken a look upstairs. There’s a long hallway and a statue of a lion at the far end. Written along the floor is ‘Only the bravest of heart will not vanish before the Lion’s Glare.’” Simon was sitting on the stairs half-way up their length, holding the little crystal that was probably how he looked into the hallway above. I swear I could hear it purr in the back of my mind as he held it in one hand and it rubbed itself against his other hand on it’s spidery crystal legs. “Anyone have a mirror?”
There as those points when you can actually feel you life splitting down two different streams of fate. When Simon asked that question, I will swear to all of the nothing that I hold sacred that I felt fate diverge. “Don’t think so. Xallis, you?” The half-elf rubbed his smooth chin for a moment then shook his head. “Okay, Simon, your call. Do we see if we’re hard enough to stare down a lion, or do we wait until morning, take the two yutzes downstairs and knock the stuffing out of them before they shake off the effects of this place?”
“But they’re such nice people! Why would we want to hurt them? In fact, why do we want to hurt anyone?” If we ever find the high priest of the rasta lion that built this place, I will hold him down so Xallis can properly express how much he enjoyed having his emotions tweaked after it wears off.
“Push on, we may find a way to remove this effect. Remé, take the lead.” The woman nods her head as she moves up the stairs, stepping around Simon. Floating around Simon as well, I take up the position behind Remé, hoping to be able to break any traps before they do bad things to us. Simon nudges Xallis up the stairs in front of him and takes up the tail position. As Remé and I reach the top of the stairs, I see the etching Simon described, my eyes following it up the room to a – ow – really bright and shifting aura at the other end of the hall.
“Yep, it’s a trap. Or something. Whatever it is, it’s got a kick to it.” As the intensity of the light dies off, I’m able to understand what it is I’m looking at. The floor is designed as a trigger plate, setting off whatever dangerous... void. Whatever dangerous and powerful transmutation spell could use the word vanish. And I’m left with a small list of options, none of them good ones.
“Mister Abe, the statue’s eyes are glowing.” Okay, make that no options. I must have missed a air trigger for the trap. Which means I have to figure out how to divert the spell before it changes us all into particulate matter.
Change?
Could it be so simple?
, I hope so. I plant my hands against the walls and the floor, driving my will into the trap. I need to do something, anything. I can feel my will chasing across the floor as the spell starts sweeping the other way. I shout the words to beak bonds, chanting them over and over in every language I know, feeling my will being pressed back by the disintegration spell, then being rolled over. I put one last bit of effort into my spell and the two begin to twist around each other, tumbling end over end towards us, screaming as the spell begins to eat away at the air itself, creating a growing black spot. I think I hear screaming behind me, but the blackness overtakes me before I can turn around and tell if everyone is screaming or just a selection....
[edit] It worked?
What happens next is a great deal of confusion. One thing I know it isn’t is death. I think. There was a feeling of great velocity, strange acceleration, and strange angles of turning and twisting. It goes on for what felt like an eternity before we land hard on a surface. And in the midst pain that feels like I’d just tumbled down the entire length of the spire, face first, I pull my head a few inches from the ground and ask, “Are we dead?”
And of course I’m the first one awake. I see that Simon and Xallis are next to me on the glittering tiles of whatever it was that decided to break our fall. I look up from my friends and gaze around. Hmm. There’s no sky, and pale blue spires reach all the way to the limits of perception. I shake my head real quick to clear my vision. Yep, still no sky. People walk all around us, conversing in every civilized language known. Plus a few of the less civilized ones, but you can’t expect fiends to speak Upper Trade, now can you? Infuriatingly, even as I’m finally awake and in one piece, some new shape of pain starts to settle in the back of my eyes.
“Abe? Where are we?” It seems they were beginning to wake up, Xallis was already asking questions. I looked at the lack of sky again, saw the blackness of undefined space shimmer for just a second, filling in the rest of the information my brain has been filing away from my senses.
“We’re in an Astral Demi-Plane that has a mild attachment to the forces of Order. That’s probably part of where your headache is coming from. You’ll probably not able get rid of it till we leave.” Xallis had brought his hands up to his head, but was lowering them without prayers as I spoke.
“Abe. What the hells does that mean? And does it have anything to do with why everyone is wearing bedsheets? And look like they all hatched out of the same batch of eggs.” Now that Xallis mentioned it, I saw that the people dressed in white togas and all seem to have been made out of a handful of molds. There were the ones that all classified under the ‘tall, dark and powerful presence,’ a few ‘fiery redheads,’ and several more that just placed themselves into categories all their own. I turn around to Xallis and start explaining what exactly is going on, first standing up and sliding my journal back into the pouch on my back I keep it in, then helping him up and pointing out the indicators of what indicated that this was a seed dimension created from the realm of thought, and it was probably the nature of the inhabitants that drew it into the fold of order and how those who valued freedom as a first virtue would be uncomfortable. I’m in the middle of the nested spheres concept to help explain what separates a demi-plane from the prime world we can to when Simon groans and sits up.
“Where are we?” It looks like the transit hit Simon harder then the other two of us, he was grimacing like a big spike was being driven into the back of his skull.
“A World in a Box.” Xallis grabs Simon and then pulls him to his feet. I’m about to correct him, but realize I’m probably not going to be able to encompass nine years of apprentice-ship into a short explanation and wave it off.
It’s just as we’ve all finally gained out feet someone seems to have taken notice of us. A woman, with skin and hair the color of a hazelnut walks up to us then starts speaking in Sigil’s trade tongue, “Excuse me, is this your native tongue?” It seems she takes my focus on her as a confirmation, I’m sure Simon and Xallis are looking confused behind me. “The collective thanks you for your generous offering. We have not yet introduced anyone from your world into ourselves, so it is a most interesting mind. If you head down three plazas, turn left, head another three plazas, you will arrive at a portal that will return you to your crystal sphere of origin.”
“Offering? What do you mean?”
“Exactly what has been stated.” Remé. It finally clicks that she’s not here. Hey, she’s in Simon’s shadow so much of the time, it happens.
“That’s not going to work, on several levels. First of all, I need a different portal, we’re not going back.” I had no idea how we escaped the first time, I’m not risking heading back there.
“My apologies, my master only gave me instructions for returning you to your crystal sphere of origination. If you will excuse me, I am needed by the collective elsewhere.” With that, she takes a few steps back and starts to shimmer with a strange cascading pattern of light before vanishing, which seems to be how the brain-bender’s dimensional distortion magics work.
“Abe, what’s going on?” I’m about to turn around and answer Xallis’ question, when Simon provides an answer.
“They’ve taken Remé. They’re going to turn her into something the people holding her are calling an Elan.” A whisper of memory in the back of my brain. The Elan are the Psionic version of the Shade, a transcendent race that seeks to improve on humanity by infusing it with energy, Psi or whatever ectoplasm it is in the mechanics of their magics instead of shadow. One thing about these procedures I definitely remember, they tend to taxidermy a person’s old personality and stick it on a shelf.
“That’s not good. They’re going to kill her. Or as good as, I know these kind of experiments, though I don’t think anyone knew where the Elan came from. I guess we know now.”
“It’s worse then that Abe. My mind and hers are deeply intertwined, and transforming her will kill me.”
“So, we stop it then? Let a little bit of the unpatterned way into this little crystal box. Sounds like a good idea to me.” Simon and Xallis turn to each other to talk about what’s going to happen. I step away from them and grab the shoulder of one of the redheads walking by speaking trade.
“Excuse me, Miss. Would you happen to know the location of the nearest portal to the City?” After a brief second of confusion on her face I realize I need to specify. “Sigil, the city of Doors?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” She rolls her shoulder to shake my hand free, then jumps away from me like a rabbit, running for twenty or thirty paces before she starts walking again as if I’d never disturbed her. Okay, time to gain some perspective. I let my will flow into my wings and lift myself into the air, seeing if there’s anywhere with a big ‘Headquarters’ look anywhere in this little demiplane.
Uniformity. An endless expanse of unpainted blue spires stretching out in every direction. Okay, the place loops on itself: I think I see the faint spec that is myself at the limits of my vision. But, looking at my own back included, nothing important. I lower myself to the ground, and my friends look to me to see if I have anything constructive to add. “I can’t see anything that could be important. If we have to hunt for Remé, it will take some time.”
Simon looks very pale as he shakes his head. “They’re about to start. We don’t have time to hunt. I’ve got an idea, but it is going to take me out of myself,” a grim smile crosses his lips, “for a while. I’ll be able to follow instructions, but I’m just going to be a walking weight.”
“Do it. We’ll need someplace to hide. I don’t see any doors Abe, did you see any?” I shake my head and Xallis continues, “Then we head down. I landed on some kind of grate that headed down, could you break it open?” I look to where he pointed, a crystal sewer grate.
“I can. Unmake!” I throw my will behind the words and point them at the crystal grate. It comes out in a rush, but it feels like I’m running into a brick wall, only the new feeling of adrenaline behind my will breaks through the wall and shatters the grate. Just barely. And then it starts flowing over itself, beginning to regrow. Xallis needs no other lead to jump into the hole, pushing Simon in. It seems Simon’s already doing his part, his eyes are glazed over. I’m the last one down the hole and I see the crowd has turned and is staring at the hole we opened as I dive in.
And pull up to avoid diving straight into the foul fluids that swirl down the center of the sewer. Xallis and Simon are on a walkway at the edge of the muck. I pull next to them, hovering over the channel. Everything down here is made of the same crystal as the city above, but discolored because every surface seems to seep with the foul humors that run sluggishly through the central channel.
Xallis looks up and down the perfectly smooth ceiling of the sewer, “There goes my idea of climbing up someones toilet and surprising them. So, how long do you think we’re going to have to wait for Simon to finish?” Before I can answer, a scratching sound begins to cascade down the tunnels towards us. “That sounds like Simon’s crystal spider, just bigger.” As Xallis finishes that thought, the first of the scratching things rounds a bend in the sewers. A scorpion made of crystal, the size of a pony. Not good. Xallis steps towards the thing as a second and a third join it at the corner. “Might of my lord root vegtable, grant me the protection of the dancing company!” I know what that prayer was supposed to do, bring up a small ring of magic blades to protect him in combat.
It brought up a whole wall of them. I lost sight of the creatures in the spray of foulness that got churned up and thrown into the air. I pull Simon back a few steps, keeping us both well out of the spray when I heard a horrible high-pitched sound begin to intrude upon the wall’s simple melody. The first of the scorpions had clawed its way through the wall. It was hurt, scratched up and down it’s length, but still intact. And the sounds continued, so it was going to have friends on this side of the barrier mighty soon. “Xallis, these things must be powered by law! Hit them with a chaos spell!”
Xallis preps himself to cast something, taking the crystal symbol of his lord in hand, then looks over his shoulder. “I can’t go offensive, I might kill Simon. Our lord of endless wonders, protect me from boredom.” I feel the shimmering field drop around us as Xallis’ prayers take effect. The first two crystal pony-scorpions through the wall start to approach the half-elf then seem to crash into something fluid, but impenetrable ten feet from him. “Abe, these things are constructs, that’s your field. What are they?”
I rack my mind for a quick second as the Crysmals begin to gather outside of Xallis’ protective field. There is it. “Not really a construct, but a living crystal called a Crysmal. They lay eggs in crystals.” Xallis gives me another brief look and tightens his hand around the Pandemonium Eye on his neck, gripping his axe with the other.
And that’s when the stupid things struck at us. I stopped for a second, dipping near the ground as wave after wave of pain sought to work its way into my head. It seems the bastards could get to us even through Gryon’s magic. I open my palm, gathering blue energy when I realize I can hold it for even longer then I could before. I can shape it. “Dream Serpent!” A snake made of blue fire leaps from my hand to the first of the creatures. But I still feel the fire. I pick the next closest Crysmal and point my will at it: the snake rushes out from the first and into the second. I manage another jump before I can’t hold the pattern anymore and the snake dissolves.
Not that it does me much good. It looks like I barely scratched the freaking things. And they feel obliged to offer a return volley of waves of agony and pain. I don’t fend as many off this time. I look to Simon, and he’s worse off then I am. A combination of blood and ectoplasm is leaking from his eyes, his ears, his nose. “Xallis, I don’t think Simon can defend himself from these mind-spikes. We need to run!” I grab one of Simon’s hands as Xallis comes back and grabs the other. He’s burning up, hot as red steel to the touch, but I just feel the heat as a bit of background data. Xallis winces as he grabs the Psion’s hand and lets the power of Gryon’s healings flow into our friend.
And we run. At first we are managing a retreat, firing off bits of magic, burst of sonic and dark energy from Xallis and an endless supply of blue fire from me. But we seem to be dealing with an endless supply of scorpions, so eventually we just start running. I let Xallis lead, trusting him to pick a pattern (or lack there of) to try and lose our pursuers. We get a moment every minute or so for Xallis to patch Simon up, trying to stop the bleeding as whatever it is that Simon’s doing tries to force his brain out of his skull. After losing track of how long we’ve been running Simon suddenly pulls his hand free of us.
“It’s done. We both survived, and Remé’s heading for us. Do you know where we are?” Xallis and I look blankly at each other, then turn to Simon who sighs and shakes his head. “Then we need to stay here. She should be with us soon. Do we have an escape plan?”
“I’ve been trying to keep an eye out. There’s the occasional grate that leads to the city above and a few swirling nexii that I think lead to the Paraelemental plane of Ooze. And I don’t think we’re yet that deep in that would lead to that place being an improvement.” Of course, this is the universe’s chance to let me know just how much deeper we are then I think as a strange cacophonous roar vibrates the tunnel, drowning out the sound of the crysmals that have been dogging us for the past who knows how long. And then a sound something big slogging its way through the sewer. We pull back from the corner we’re hiding behind before the creature comes into sight.
It’s ten feet tall, bipedal with arms that reach all the way to the ground. It looks like a giant angry brain covered by a rib cage exoskeleton. With teeth. Footlong teeth.
“Cerebrilith. A Tan’ari of the Fifth Rank, one designed as a psionic engine of war by stealing a piece of Illsensine’s realm and infecting a Babau with the Flayer God’s powers. Strongly resistant to magical and psionic influence, it also cannot be damaged by weapons that haven’t been blessed by the gods of the realms above.” I look back at Simon as he rattles off the description of the creature. The same description that the dream spirits were whispering to me. Right. Figure that out later. Also figure out how he doesn’t have to relay that kind of stuff through his crystal anymore, cause that was all said telepathically. Demons first, they present the sharpest of the problems we face.
Xallis reacts before Simon or I as we’re both staring at each other in slight wonderment, “Dancing company of the Thousand Blades, protect your lord’s servant!” It seems Xallis is slightly more prepared to call forth the barrier this time and places it right on top of the Cerebrilith. It staggers in the blades but lands on the side of the barrier that contains three of my favorite people. I pool a dose of eldritch fire in my palm and toss it, but it splashes harmlessly against the exoskeleton of the demon. It stares at Xallis for a moment and it claws begin to shimmer with some strange energy field surrounding them, then takes a step forward.
And then drops back a step as a visible arc of mental energy leaps from Simon towards the creature, sinking into the strange pulsing grey matter of creature. Which stops pulsing and starts bubbling. Xallis roars a battle cry and leaps into the creature, knocking the creature back into the blades. This time, the cerebrilith comes out on both sides of the barrier, finely ground. We couldn’t see Xallis, but a second later Xallis breaks the surface and gasps for breath. Then gags. Simon and I both rush forward to give our victorious cleric a hand back onto the walkway.
As soon as Xallis regains his feet, he almost looses it as a series of roars echo through the sewers. The sounds of roaring demons mixed with the strange scratching silence of the crysmals. It sounds like the demons were engaged in combat with the scorpions, and I don’t think we cared who was going to get stung. Which means it would be good if we weren’t hearing less and less of the sewer guardians while the roaring, taunting threats of the demons never lost a member of its chorus. Trying to pick out voices, I think there were at least four of them. “It’s a hunting pack. We seem to just have the wonderful luck of being the softer targets.” I turned back to Simon.
“Define soon.” Xallis and I said in tandem.
“A few more seconds. How much longer is that barrier going to last?” Simon was getting his answer as he spoke because slowly the blades were starting to slow and stop. I was keeping my eye on one blade as it slowed, and upon stopping, vanishing. As the last blade disappeared I was surrounded by a cascade of shimmering light.
“Aah!” I dodge out of the light just in time to end up merely collapsing into the wall of the sewer in a tangle with Remé. I sigh. “Remé, I am very happy to see you, but I had thus far managed to remain out of the.”
We manage to untangle ourselves and stand up, with Remé giving me far too many “Sorry, Mr. Abe”’s for my comfort. I reach down to pick up my journal, which had fallen out of my bag in the tumble.
It wasn’t my journal. The paper wasn’t the type I had in my journal, it was the strange ultra-white blue paper that I saw...
In my father’s journal.
It’s his handwriting, I confirm as I lift the book to my eyes, flipping to the cover of the book, then back to the page it had fallen open to. There, in Nerick Spellchaser’s hand was written:
My Dear Son,
Congratulations on passing the first test. Always remember, nothing is forever, even home. If you’re looking for a place that a few steps away from your enemies, there’s a portal about 4 blocks away: L S S R. Key: Fear. One final note: remember, To Serve Man is often a cookbook.
I look up and see my friends starting at me. “Um. I have my father’s spellbook, and I have a way out. The way we’re heading,” I point down the tunnel, “turn left, go straight for two intersection, then turn right. There’s a portal there. We should probably be running.”
“One thing first.” Simon turned to his assistant, “Remé, delay the demons. If I understand what Abe knows, they’re weak against sound.” Remé nodds and walks around the corner. A second later, the sound of the world shattering rushes past us, with Remé running behind it. Chasing her were two of the demons rounding the corner hard. It gave us some time to start running. As we ran a burst of energy leaped from Remé to each of us in turn. As the burst lands, it settles around the feet and the target’s steps lengthen. First Simon, then Xallis, followed by myself, with Remé saving herself for last.
With the enchantment, we’re able to start putting some distance between ourselves and our pursuers. Enough that we’re a whole turn ahead of the demons when we run smack into a solid wall that I see glimmering with the latent energy of a portal. Why isn’t the portal open? We are running for our lives, why isn’t that keying the portal. Wait. I think I have an idea. I roll as much panic as I can into my voice, “naughty word. I don’t know the key.” All three look at me, a face of confusion crossing their face, morphing into terror as a demon’s roar echoes through the sewers over us. I see the solid stone shimmer and fade to blackness. “That’ll do.”
I fly through the portal, Simon’s voice clipping as I cross the portal, “You BAST–”
[edit] Now What?
This portal is a more familiar experience, a brief sensation of transit, no wild, cascading ride. No disorientation, no sudden wash of strange gravity. And my headache’s gone. I clear the event horizon of the portal as the others start coming through. They all give me a very severe look, but I just smile, “It worked, didn’t it?”
Simon and Remé don’t look pleased, but Xallis thinks for a second and nods his head. Xallis sits down on the edge of the stone box next to the portal to rest his feet, then jumps off it. “Abe, this is a coffin.” I look around us. It’s not a lonely coffin. We’re standing in a Necropolis, small ethereal light glowing from some of carved coffin lids giving the room a pale illumination. The room was huge, in every direction. The ceiling above was high enough to be shrouded in shadows, with tall columns reaching up into the shadows dense enough to make the edges of the room hard to determine. Xallis’ voice breaks my survey, “I see movement, close.” He’s now standing on the coffin lid, pointing to a spot in the middle distance that I had skipped over. It looked like a large feast sitting on the ground and eating, their heads just visible over the coffins. As I stood there watching, one of the group lifted a haunch of meat to its mouth and took a bite. It was a woman’s leg, the thing’s mouth tearing into the thigh and ripping off a piece of meat. My stomach turned, trying to find a meal to lose.
“Ghouls. A lot of them.” Xallis and I rush the ghouls, Xallis leaping from lid to lid as I got some lift above him, slowing a bit to steady myself by slapping each pillar as I pass. I was unsteady, so Xallis reached the ghouls first.
He jumps to the top of one of the coffins in their midst and tears the choker with his holy symbol from his neck to hold it above his head, “By my lord Banana, be purged!” For a moment the whole necropolis is illuminated by the flash of light from the crystal eye of the ancient high priest of Gyron. I’m blinking for a few moments as my night vision returns, but when I look down I see my friend standing alone with a cloud of dust slowly settling to the ground around him. As I blink, I swear I see a single instant of a hand grasping after a tome, my father’s arcane symbol. “Ooh, Shiny!” Xallis has an axe in his hands. As soon as he picked it up, the axe began to shimmer with a shifting, iridescent pattern. Xallis turns back to Simon and Remé and shouts, “Guys! Loot!”
I land next to Xallis, my magical senses engaging as I proceed to catalogue item after item, with each of us handing it to the person who consensus seems to indicate needs it. I find a set of shimmering clothes that take me touching it to realize that it’s a set of armor. As we’re sorting out what remains of the ghoul’s final meal, conversation starts. “So, you two are still with us? No taxidermied personalities?”
“We’re still here, though we have been changed physically. My master was correct, as always.” Remé nods towards Simon before handing him a silver headhand.
“I knew I wouldn’t survive the transition if I didn’t do something. So I deepened the amount that Remé’s mind and mine were woven together, then pulled us out of ourselves, allowing The Committee for the Physical Advancement of Humanoids to change our bodies, but not our minds. I’m just glad it worked.”
We continued sorting out loot for almost an hour, with a brief stop for some conjured food from Xallis (several dozen feet away from the ghouls and their foul meal). Just after the meal, I saw something that caught my eye, but held off on investigating until after we finished dealing with the possessions and remains of the company that the ghouls had torn apart. When I had a chance to investigate it, I found a filled in stone arch with blades worked into the stone of the arch and a pattern of stars in the space inside. I asked for, and received a piece of chalk from Simon and began to trace the pattern I saw in the stone. I was halfway through the pattern when Remé’s voice interrupted me, “Mr Abe, what are you doing?”
“This wall’s another portal, I’m just opening it. There’s an image hidden in it, and tracing it opens the portal.”
“Abe, we’re all pretty tired. This isn’t the best place to sleep, but we all need rest. Can it wait until we’ve all slept.” Simon was being reasonable.
I tossed him his chalk back, “You’re right, I can play find-the-lady later.” As I walked back to the place where we had eaten, I let the pair of Psions stare at the wall and the half-finished silhouette of a woman with what looked like long, spikes for hair. One more door, then I was home. Back where I belonged. I couldn’t stop the smile from engulfing my features.
Episode 0 – The Last Fools
“Simon, I’m beginning to doubt the sanity of the designers of this hovel.” I hop over the mural of the twin lions on the ground, giving the pattern a sign of dire salute as I float over the trap that had just gotten the legs of my companion and his better half.
“This place reeks of arcane magic Abe. I’m coming to the conclusion that the use can not help but imbalance the mind.” Simon and Remé were kneeling down on the stairs to the next level each checking the scratches that the claws of the lions had left in their legs.
I tear off a strip of linen and help the pair tie bandages tight around their calves to reduce the bleeding, and grumble, “Says the person who needed a few weeks of personal time to prevent his thoughts from leaking out of his own head.” I offer them both a hand to help them get back to their feet. “Call it power or life my friend, I’m not sure there’s actually enough space in some-one's bone-box for them to actually be all ‘there.’ But I’m talking about seriously wacky, ‘I’m-touched-by-Gyron’ level of off, and –”
“I know what you mean, man. It’s all just soo... peaceful. My lord pancake has certainly blessed this house.” It seems Xallis had decided to head back into the house and gotten hit by the emotion control again. He was now slumping against the frame of the door just shy of the mural. He pulls himself off the frame and starts to walk forward, but I interrupt him this time and move back over to him and place a hand on his chest.
How am I avoiding the mural? Simple, I’m not touching the ground. My wings shimmer in the air behind me, blue constructs of magic holding me aloft. “Let me do something first.” I go back to the side of the mural with the stairs on it, land just past the mural and place my hand next to the mural, then close and open my eyes. It’s blurry for a few seconds as all of the flowing patterns of magic swirl and interpose themselves over the physical reality before my mind has seen enough to interpret what it’s seeing. I’m looking at the trap, and the trap is looking back at me, four pairs of eyes peering out from the magical pattern of the trap. Spirits of one sort or another, called to power this trap. Wait my eyes say as they add another level of detail to this puzzle, bound here to form this trap. “It’s a pair of snakes, worked into the stones of the mural.”
“Snakes, Mister Abe? Why make snakes into lions?” Remé had a point, but Simon answered the question for both of us.
“Lions are cats, and would probably be more likely to just lie there and sleep. Step on a snake and it will lash out, that’s its nature. Maybe you could just help Xallis over the mural and avoid this trap.”
“No, they’re caged here. And I may regret it, but I’m going to try and open their cage.” I lean a little harder into my hand and send trickles of my power through the magic. I feel into the magical construct, searching around until I find the catch. It takes some time, and I feel like I’m drifting there, disconnected from my physical form, but eventually, I find something solid in the magical construct. It feels like a pair of jaws set into the tails. Chains. Well, I know how to deal with those. I whisper the words of unmaking, pointing my will at the bindings that keep the spirits tied into the stone on the ground. I feel it as it happens, first one, then both chains dissolving beneath my power.
Now the stones of the mural begin to glow as the two lions turn into a pair of black and green patterned vipers. As one, they turn to me and speak, “Thank.” “You,” then begin to dissolve into light as their summoning spell expires. I let my vision drift down to my hand. Oh, right. Nature. It looked like I stuck my hand in a nest of feral cats. Or at least, that was my last thought before I passed out.
“Yohoo, Abe, you awake now?” I hear Xallis’ voice as I emerge from the black place.
“I am, thanks Xallis.” I look around me at the stone stairway. It seems I haven’t been moved since I passed out from the blood loss.
“Abe, those glowing, snake things said something before they vanished. What did they say?” Simon asked, offering me a hand to stand up.
“They thanked me. In Upper Trade. Must have been Beasts.” The souls of animals and a whole bunch of people who worship gods of the wild get reborn as animals in the Beastlands, and all of the animals there talk.
“Mister Abe, that word sounded emphasized. What do you mean, Beasts?”
“Oh! I know this one. I think.” It seems the emotion calming couldn’t completely beat back the force that was Xallis. “Servants of the Beast Gods, right?”
“Something like that.” I turned my focus in for a moment, making sure all of my own spell constructs were properly in place.
“I’ve taken a look upstairs. There’s a long hallway and a statue of a lion at the far end. Written along the floor is ‘Only the bravest of heart will not vanish before the Lion’s Glare.’” Simon was sitting on the stairs half-way up their length, holding the little crystal that was probably how he looked into the hallway above. I swear I could hear it purr in the back of my mind as he held it in one hand and it rubbed itself against his other hand on it’s spidery crystal legs. “Anyone have a mirror?”
There as those points when you can actually feel you life splitting down two different streams of fate. When Simon asked that question, I will swear to all of the nothing that I hold sacred that I felt fate diverge. “Don’t think so. Xallis, you?” The half-elf rubbed his smooth chin for a moment then shook his head. “Okay, Simon, your call. Do we see if we’re hard enough to stare down a lion, or do we wait until morning, take the two yutzes downstairs and knock the stuffing out of them before they shake off the effects of this place?”
“But they’re such nice people! Why would we want to hurt them? In fact, why do we want to hurt anyone?” If we ever find the high priest of the rasta lion that built this place, I will hold him down so Xallis can properly express how much he enjoyed having his emotions tweaked after it wears off.
“Push on, we may find a way to remove this effect. Remé, take the lead.” The woman nods her head as she moves up the stairs, stepping around Simon. Floating around Simon as well, I take up the position behind Remé, hoping to be able to break any traps before they do bad things to us. Simon nudges Xallis up the stairs in front of him and takes up the tail position. As Remé and I reach the top of the stairs, I see the etching Simon described, my eyes following it up the room to a – ow – really bright and shifting aura at the other end of the hall.
“Yep, it’s a trap. Or something. Whatever it is, it’s got a kick to it.” As the intensity of the light dies off, I’m able to understand what it is I’m looking at. The floor is designed as a trigger plate, setting off whatever dangerous... void. Whatever dangerous and powerful transmutation spell could use the word vanish. And I’m left with a small list of options, none of them good ones.
“Mister Abe, the statue’s eyes are glowing.” Okay, make that no options. I must have missed a air trigger for the trap. Which means I have to figure out how to divert the spell before it changes us all into particulate matter.
Change?
Could it be so simple?
, I hope so. I plant my hands against the walls and the floor, driving my will into the trap. I need to do something, anything. I can feel my will chasing across the floor as the spell starts sweeping the other way. I shout the words to beak bonds, chanting them over and over in every language I know, feeling my will being pressed back by the disintegration spell, then being rolled over. I put one last bit of effort into my spell and the two begin to twist around each other, tumbling end over end towards us, screaming as the spell begins to eat away at the air itself, creating a growing black spot. I think I hear screaming behind me, but the blackness overtakes me before I can turn around and tell if everyone is screaming or just a selection....[edit] It worked?
What happens next is a great deal of confusion. One thing I know it isn’t is death. I think. There was a feeling of great velocity, strange acceleration, and strange angles of turning and twisting. It goes on for what felt like an eternity before we land hard on a surface. And in the midst pain that feels like I’d just tumbled down the entire length of the spire, face first, I pull my head a few inches from the ground and ask, “Are we dead?”
And of course I’m the first one awake. I see that Simon and Xallis are next to me on the glittering tiles of whatever it was that decided to break our fall. I look up from my friends and gaze around. Hmm. There’s no sky, and pale blue spires reach all the way to the limits of perception. I shake my head real quick to clear my vision. Yep, still no sky. People walk all around us, conversing in every civilized language known. Plus a few of the less civilized ones, but you can’t expect fiends to speak Upper Trade, now can you? Infuriatingly, even as I’m finally awake and in one piece, some new shape of pain starts to settle in the back of my eyes.
“Abe? Where are we?” It seems they were beginning to wake up, Xallis was already asking questions. I looked at the lack of sky again, saw the blackness of undefined space shimmer for just a second, filling in the rest of the information my brain has been filing away from my senses.
“We’re in an Astral Demi-Plane that has a mild attachment to the forces of Order. That’s probably part of where your headache is coming from. You’ll probably not able get rid of it till we leave.” Xallis had brought his hands up to his head, but was lowering them without prayers as I spoke.
“Abe. What the hells does that mean? And does it have anything to do with why everyone is wearing bedsheets? And look like they all hatched out of the same batch of eggs.” Now that Xallis mentioned it, I saw that the people dressed in white togas and all seem to have been made out of a handful of molds. There were the ones that all classified under the ‘tall, dark and powerful presence,’ a few ‘fiery redheads,’ and several more that just placed themselves into categories all their own. I turn around to Xallis and start explaining what exactly is going on, first standing up and sliding my journal back into the pouch on my back I keep it in, then helping him up and pointing out the indicators of what indicated that this was a seed dimension created from the realm of thought, and it was probably the nature of the inhabitants that drew it into the fold of order and how those who valued freedom as a first virtue would be uncomfortable. I’m in the middle of the nested spheres concept to help explain what separates a demi-plane from the prime world we can to when Simon groans and sits up.
“Where are we?” It looks like the transit hit Simon harder then the other two of us, he was grimacing like a big spike was being driven into the back of his skull.
“A World in a Box.” Xallis grabs Simon and then pulls him to his feet. I’m about to correct him, but realize I’m probably not going to be able to encompass nine years of apprentice-ship into a short explanation and wave it off.
It’s just as we’ve all finally gained out feet someone seems to have taken notice of us. A woman, with skin and hair the color of a hazelnut walks up to us then starts speaking in Sigil’s trade tongue, “Excuse me, is this your native tongue?” It seems she takes my focus on her as a confirmation, I’m sure Simon and Xallis are looking confused behind me. “The collective thanks you for your generous offering. We have not yet introduced anyone from your world into ourselves, so it is a most interesting mind. If you head down three plazas, turn left, head another three plazas, you will arrive at a portal that will return you to your crystal sphere of origin.”
“Offering? What do you mean?”
“Exactly what has been stated.” Remé. It finally clicks that she’s not here. Hey, she’s in Simon’s shadow so much of the time, it happens.
“That’s not going to work, on several levels. First of all, I need a different portal, we’re not going back.” I had no idea how we escaped the first time, I’m not risking heading back there.
“My apologies, my master only gave me instructions for returning you to your crystal sphere of origination. If you will excuse me, I am needed by the collective elsewhere.” With that, she takes a few steps back and starts to shimmer with a strange cascading pattern of light before vanishing, which seems to be how the brain-bender’s dimensional distortion magics work.
“Abe, what’s going on?” I’m about to turn around and answer Xallis’ question, when Simon provides an answer.
“They’ve taken Remé. They’re going to turn her into something the people holding her are calling an Elan.” A whisper of memory in the back of my brain. The Elan are the Psionic version of the Shade, a transcendent race that seeks to improve on humanity by infusing it with energy, Psi or whatever ectoplasm it is in the mechanics of their magics instead of shadow. One thing about these procedures I definitely remember, they tend to taxidermy a person’s old personality and stick it on a shelf.
“That’s not good. They’re going to kill her. Or as good as, I know these kind of experiments, though I don’t think anyone knew where the Elan came from. I guess we know now.”
“It’s worse then that Abe. My mind and hers are deeply intertwined, and transforming her will kill me.”
“So, we stop it then? Let a little bit of the unpatterned way into this little crystal box. Sounds like a good idea to me.” Simon and Xallis turn to each other to talk about what’s going to happen. I step away from them and grab the shoulder of one of the redheads walking by speaking trade.
“Excuse me, Miss. Would you happen to know the location of the nearest portal to the City?” After a brief second of confusion on her face I realize I need to specify. “Sigil, the city of Doors?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” She rolls her shoulder to shake my hand free, then jumps away from me like a rabbit, running for twenty or thirty paces before she starts walking again as if I’d never disturbed her. Okay, time to gain some perspective. I let my will flow into my wings and lift myself into the air, seeing if there’s anywhere with a big ‘Headquarters’ look anywhere in this little demiplane.
Uniformity. An endless expanse of unpainted blue spires stretching out in every direction. Okay, the place loops on itself: I think I see the faint spec that is myself at the limits of my vision. But, looking at my own back included, nothing important. I lower myself to the ground, and my friends look to me to see if I have anything constructive to add. “I can’t see anything that could be important. If we have to hunt for Remé, it will take some time.”
Simon looks very pale as he shakes his head. “They’re about to start. We don’t have time to hunt. I’ve got an idea, but it is going to take me out of myself,” a grim smile crosses his lips, “for a while. I’ll be able to follow instructions, but I’m just going to be a walking weight.”
“Do it. We’ll need someplace to hide. I don’t see any doors Abe, did you see any?” I shake my head and Xallis continues, “Then we head down. I landed on some kind of grate that headed down, could you break it open?” I look to where he pointed, a crystal sewer grate.
“I can. Unmake!” I throw my will behind the words and point them at the crystal grate. It comes out in a rush, but it feels like I’m running into a brick wall, only the new feeling of adrenaline behind my will breaks through the wall and shatters the grate. Just barely. And then it starts flowing over itself, beginning to regrow. Xallis needs no other lead to jump into the hole, pushing Simon in. It seems Simon’s already doing his part, his eyes are glazed over. I’m the last one down the hole and I see the crowd has turned and is staring at the hole we opened as I dive in.
And pull up to avoid diving straight into the foul fluids that swirl down the center of the sewer. Xallis and Simon are on a walkway at the edge of the muck. I pull next to them, hovering over the channel. Everything down here is made of the same crystal as the city above, but discolored because every surface seems to seep with the foul humors that run sluggishly through the central channel.
Xallis looks up and down the perfectly smooth ceiling of the sewer, “There goes my idea of climbing up someones toilet and surprising them. So, how long do you think we’re going to have to wait for Simon to finish?” Before I can answer, a scratching sound begins to cascade down the tunnels towards us. “That sounds like Simon’s crystal spider, just bigger.” As Xallis finishes that thought, the first of the scratching things rounds a bend in the sewers. A scorpion made of crystal, the size of a pony. Not good. Xallis steps towards the thing as a second and a third join it at the corner. “Might of my lord root vegtable, grant me the protection of the dancing company!” I know what that prayer was supposed to do, bring up a small ring of magic blades to protect him in combat.
It brought up a whole wall of them. I lost sight of the creatures in the spray of foulness that got churned up and thrown into the air. I pull Simon back a few steps, keeping us both well out of the spray when I heard a horrible high-pitched sound begin to intrude upon the wall’s simple melody. The first of the scorpions had clawed its way through the wall. It was hurt, scratched up and down it’s length, but still intact. And the sounds continued, so it was going to have friends on this side of the barrier mighty soon. “Xallis, these things must be powered by law! Hit them with a chaos spell!”
Xallis preps himself to cast something, taking the crystal symbol of his lord in hand, then looks over his shoulder. “I can’t go offensive, I might kill Simon. Our lord of endless wonders, protect me from boredom.” I feel the shimmering field drop around us as Xallis’ prayers take effect. The first two crystal pony-scorpions through the wall start to approach the half-elf then seem to crash into something fluid, but impenetrable ten feet from him. “Abe, these things are constructs, that’s your field. What are they?”
I rack my mind for a quick second as the Crysmals begin to gather outside of Xallis’ protective field. There is it. “Not really a construct, but a living crystal called a Crysmal. They lay eggs in crystals.” Xallis gives me another brief look and tightens his hand around the Pandemonium Eye on his neck, gripping his axe with the other.
And that’s when the stupid things struck at us. I stopped for a second, dipping near the ground as wave after wave of pain sought to work its way into my head. It seems the bastards could get to us even through Gryon’s magic. I open my palm, gathering blue energy when I realize I can hold it for even longer then I could before. I can shape it. “Dream Serpent!” A snake made of blue fire leaps from my hand to the first of the creatures. But I still feel the fire. I pick the next closest Crysmal and point my will at it: the snake rushes out from the first and into the second. I manage another jump before I can’t hold the pattern anymore and the snake dissolves.
Not that it does me much good. It looks like I barely scratched the freaking things. And they feel obliged to offer a return volley of waves of agony and pain. I don’t fend as many off this time. I look to Simon, and he’s worse off then I am. A combination of blood and ectoplasm is leaking from his eyes, his ears, his nose. “Xallis, I don’t think Simon can defend himself from these mind-spikes. We need to run!” I grab one of Simon’s hands as Xallis comes back and grabs the other. He’s burning up, hot as red steel to the touch, but I just feel the heat as a bit of background data. Xallis winces as he grabs the Psion’s hand and lets the power of Gryon’s healings flow into our friend.
And we run. At first we are managing a retreat, firing off bits of magic, burst of sonic and dark energy from Xallis and an endless supply of blue fire from me. But we seem to be dealing with an endless supply of scorpions, so eventually we just start running. I let Xallis lead, trusting him to pick a pattern (or lack there of) to try and lose our pursuers. We get a moment every minute or so for Xallis to patch Simon up, trying to stop the bleeding as whatever it is that Simon’s doing tries to force his brain out of his skull. After losing track of how long we’ve been running Simon suddenly pulls his hand free of us.
“It’s done. We both survived, and Remé’s heading for us. Do you know where we are?” Xallis and I look blankly at each other, then turn to Simon who sighs and shakes his head. “Then we need to stay here. She should be with us soon. Do we have an escape plan?”
“I’ve been trying to keep an eye out. There’s the occasional grate that leads to the city above and a few swirling nexii that I think lead to the Paraelemental plane of Ooze. And I don’t think we’re yet that deep in
that would lead to that place being an improvement.” Of course, this is the universe’s chance to let me know just how much deeper we are then I think as a strange cacophonous roar vibrates the tunnel, drowning out the sound of the crysmals that have been dogging us for the past who knows how long. And then a sound something big slogging its way through the sewer. We pull back from the corner we’re hiding behind before the creature comes into sight.It’s ten feet tall, bipedal with arms that reach all the way to the ground. It looks like a giant angry brain covered by a rib cage exoskeleton. With teeth. Footlong teeth.
“Cerebrilith. A Tan’ari of the Fifth Rank, one designed as a psionic engine of war by stealing a piece of Illsensine’s realm and infecting a Babau with the Flayer God’s powers. Strongly resistant to magical and psionic influence, it also cannot be damaged by weapons that haven’t been blessed by the gods of the realms above.” I look back at Simon as he rattles off the description of the creature. The same description that the dream spirits were whispering to me. Right. Figure that out later. Also figure out how he doesn’t have to relay that kind of stuff through his crystal anymore, cause that was all said telepathically. Demons first, they present the sharpest of the problems we face.
Xallis reacts before Simon or I as we’re both staring at each other in slight wonderment, “Dancing company of the Thousand Blades, protect your lord’s servant!” It seems Xallis is slightly more prepared to call forth the barrier this time and places it right on top of the Cerebrilith. It staggers in the blades but lands on the side of the barrier that contains three of my favorite people. I pool a dose of eldritch fire in my palm and toss it, but it splashes harmlessly against the exoskeleton of the demon. It stares at Xallis for a moment and it claws begin to shimmer with some strange energy field surrounding them, then takes a step forward.
And then drops back a step as a visible arc of mental energy leaps from Simon towards the creature, sinking into the strange pulsing grey matter of creature. Which stops pulsing and starts bubbling. Xallis roars a battle cry and leaps into the creature, knocking the creature back into the blades. This time, the cerebrilith comes out on both sides of the barrier, finely ground. We couldn’t see Xallis, but a second later Xallis breaks the surface and gasps for breath. Then gags. Simon and I both rush forward to give our victorious cleric a hand back onto the walkway.
As soon as Xallis regains his feet, he almost looses it as a series of roars echo through the sewers. The sounds of roaring demons mixed with the strange scratching silence of the crysmals. It sounds like the demons were engaged in combat with the scorpions, and I don’t think we cared who was going to get stung. Which means it would be good if we weren’t hearing less and less of the sewer guardians while the roaring, taunting threats of the demons never lost a member of its chorus. Trying to pick out voices, I think there were at least four of them. “It’s a hunting pack. We seem to just have the wonderful luck of being the softer targets.” I turned back to Simon.
“Define soon.” Xallis and I said in tandem.
“A few more seconds. How much longer is that barrier going to last?” Simon was getting his answer as he spoke because slowly the blades were starting to slow and stop. I was keeping my eye on one blade as it slowed, and upon stopping, vanishing. As the last blade disappeared I was surrounded by a cascade of shimmering light.
“Aah!” I dodge out of the light just in time to end up merely collapsing into the wall of the sewer in a tangle with Remé. I sigh. “Remé, I am very happy to see you, but I had thus far managed to remain out of the
.”We manage to untangle ourselves and stand up, with Remé giving me far too many “Sorry, Mr. Abe”’s for my comfort. I reach down to pick up my journal, which had fallen out of my bag in the tumble.
It wasn’t my journal. The paper wasn’t the type I had in my journal, it was the strange ultra-white blue paper that I saw...
In my father’s journal.
It’s his handwriting, I confirm as I lift the book to my eyes, flipping to the cover of the book, then back to the page it had fallen open to. There, in Nerick Spellchaser’s hand was written:
My Dear Son,
Congratulations on passing the first test. Always remember, nothing is forever, even home. If you’re looking for a place that a few steps away from your enemies, there’s a portal about 4 blocks away: L S S R. Key: Fear. One final note: remember, To Serve Man is often a cookbook.
I look up and see my friends starting at me. “Um. I have my father’s spellbook, and I have a way out. The way we’re heading,” I point down the tunnel, “turn left, go straight for two intersection, then turn right. There’s a portal there. We should probably be running.”
“One thing first.” Simon turned to his assistant, “Remé, delay the demons. If I understand what Abe knows, they’re weak against sound.” Remé nodds and walks around the corner. A second later, the sound of the world shattering rushes past us, with Remé running behind it. Chasing her were two of the demons rounding the corner hard. It gave us some time to start running. As we ran a burst of energy leaped from Remé to each of us in turn. As the burst lands, it settles around the feet and the target’s steps lengthen. First Simon, then Xallis, followed by myself, with Remé saving herself for last.
With the enchantment, we’re able to start putting some distance between ourselves and our pursuers. Enough that we’re a whole turn ahead of the demons when we run smack into a solid wall that I see glimmering with the latent energy of a portal. Why isn’t the portal open? We are running for our lives, why isn’t that keying the portal. Wait. I think I have an idea. I roll as much panic as I can into my voice, “naughty word. I don’t know the key.” All three look at me, a face of confusion crossing their face, morphing into terror as a demon’s roar echoes through the sewers over us. I see the solid stone shimmer and fade to blackness. “That’ll do.”
I fly through the portal, Simon’s voice clipping as I cross the portal, “You BAST–”
[edit] Now What?
This portal is a more familiar experience, a brief sensation of transit, no wild, cascading ride. No disorientation, no sudden wash of strange gravity. And my headache’s gone. I clear the event horizon of the portal as the others start coming through. They all give me a very severe look, but I just smile, “It worked, didn’t it?”
Simon and Remé don’t look pleased, but Xallis thinks for a second and nods his head. Xallis sits down on the edge of the stone box next to the portal to rest his feet, then jumps off it. “Abe, this is a coffin.” I look around us. It’s not a lonely coffin. We’re standing in a Necropolis, small ethereal light glowing from some of carved coffin lids giving the room a pale illumination. The room was huge, in every direction. The ceiling above was high enough to be shrouded in shadows, with tall columns reaching up into the shadows dense enough to make the edges of the room hard to determine. Xallis’ voice breaks my survey, “I see movement, close.” He’s now standing on the coffin lid, pointing to a spot in the middle distance that I had skipped over. It looked like a large feast sitting on the ground and eating, their heads just visible over the coffins. As I stood there watching, one of the group lifted a haunch of meat to its mouth and took a bite. It was a woman’s leg, the thing’s mouth tearing into the thigh and ripping off a piece of meat. My stomach turned, trying to find a meal to lose.
“Ghouls. A lot of them.” Xallis and I rush the ghouls, Xallis leaping from lid to lid as I got some lift above him, slowing a bit to steady myself by slapping each pillar as I pass. I was unsteady, so Xallis reached the ghouls first.
He jumps to the top of one of the coffins in their midst and tears the choker with his holy symbol from his neck to hold it above his head, “By my lord Banana, be purged!” For a moment the whole necropolis is illuminated by the flash of light from the crystal eye of the ancient high priest of Gyron. I’m blinking for a few moments as my night vision returns, but when I look down I see my friend standing alone with a cloud of dust slowly settling to the ground around him. As I blink, I swear I see a single instant of a hand grasping after a tome, my father’s arcane symbol. “Ooh, Shiny!” Xallis has an axe in his hands. As soon as he picked it up, the axe began to shimmer with a shifting, iridescent pattern. Xallis turns back to Simon and Remé and shouts, “Guys! Loot!”
I land next to Xallis, my magical senses engaging as I proceed to catalogue item after item, with each of us handing it to the person who consensus seems to indicate needs it. I find a set of shimmering clothes that take me touching it to realize that it’s a set of armor. As we’re sorting out what remains of the ghoul’s final meal, conversation starts. “So, you two are still with us? No taxidermied personalities?”
“We’re still here, though we have been changed physically. My master was correct, as always.” Remé nods towards Simon before handing him a silver headhand.
“I knew I wouldn’t survive the transition if I didn’t do something. So I deepened the amount that Remé’s mind and mine were woven together, then pulled us out of ourselves, allowing The Committee for the Physical Advancement of Humanoids to change our bodies, but not our minds. I’m just glad it worked.”
We continued sorting out loot for almost an hour, with a brief stop for some conjured food from Xallis (several dozen feet away from the ghouls and their foul meal). Just after the meal, I saw something that caught my eye, but held off on investigating until after we finished dealing with the possessions and remains of the company that the ghouls had torn apart. When I had a chance to investigate it, I found a filled in stone arch with blades worked into the stone of the arch and a pattern of stars in the space inside. I asked for, and received a piece of chalk from Simon and began to trace the pattern I saw in the stone. I was halfway through the pattern when Remé’s voice interrupted me, “Mr Abe, what are you doing?”
“This wall’s another portal, I’m just opening it. There’s an image hidden in it, and tracing it opens the portal.”
“Abe, we’re all pretty tired. This isn’t the best place to sleep, but we all need rest. Can it wait until we’ve all slept.” Simon was being reasonable.
I tossed him his chalk back, “You’re right, I can play find-the-lady later.” As I walked back to the place where we had eaten, I let the pair of Psions stare at the wall and the half-finished silhouette of a woman with what looked like long, spikes for hair. One more door, then I was home. Back where I belonged. I couldn’t stop the smile from engulfing my features.
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