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The Adventures of the Knights of Spellforge Keep- UPDATED 6/6

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It's weekend - story posting time. C'mon Doc, c'mon Doc, c'mon Doc, c'mon Doc, c'mon Doc, c'mon Doc, ...

It's either that or compose some more dwarven techno music - if that is indeed what it was! But that takes way more time than writing. :D C'mon Doc, get this out - you know you want to.
 

Doc, you write a totally excellent story hour - I'll miss it when it's finished. (Though I did have to skip the Knights of the Silver Quill, my brother is running us through RTOEE now. Who would have thought I'd be able to pass my Will save on that one!)
 

Thanks Look!

I've written more, but sadly, I didn't get enough out before my fuel ran dry and I needed to get away from the computer again. I'll try to update tomorrow, and when I do, I'll try to make it a nice, thick, worthy update.
 




Here on Oerth, under the stars, encased in fear, entombed in fire
The final rage of sword and spell and claw and consequences dire
His faithful few, the Knights, had traveled long and walked the reaper’s wire
To meet and fight the sickened one, his beasts, and their abyssal choir

The war on life and good and all will soon be waged and soon be done
Thuriaq may rise at last and shatter here the hateful sun
Yet he did not, we know, because we lived to hear this tale be sung
So listen closely, child, and learn of how the Knights of Spellforge won.

Here on Oerth, where faith is called upon in all except for one.


PROLOGUE

“Bad things brewin’.”

“We knew that.”

“Just sayin’.” Mallick spat on the ground. The wind blew the wheatstalks all to one side, where they fought with one another in a rippling pattern. The wind was very uneasy tonight. The moon was far too large, and it loomed over them all like a man’s face over a fishbowl. It gave Mallick Hucrele the most repellent feeling. He shifted his axe to his other hand and waited.

“Stop fidgeting,” Helmut grunted. The fur-clad northman frowned at Mallick in the moonlight. “You’re irritating Helmut. Helmut must remain focused so that he might drive the giant back into the ground when it arises.”

Mallick huffed. “Helmut must think he’s a great deal more powerful than he is to believe he can any chance of defeating Perysion the Ululating Horror.”

“Shut up, the both of you.” The small dwarven woman in black sharpened her knives against a whetstone, stopping only to glare at the two bickering men. “You’re like children.”

Mallick slumped against a tree and let some of the breath in his lungs escape. It frosted in the air as he mumbled. “I’m sorry. Just nerves, is all.”

Helmut shifted his weight. “Helmut is sorry as well. He is only troubled by the terror we will face. What will it resemble, again, small one?”

Figfim the Great adjusted his glasses on the tip of his large gnomish nose and squinted. “I am Figfim, not ‘small one’. And Perysion will be a towering mass of tentacles and eye stalks, if the scrolls are to be believed.” He bent over the scrolls again, studying the monster foretold to rise on this night in this portion of the world. “It will reave and devour, leaving only death in its wake. What troubles me most is this final passage: ’And his kind will mark the way of the rising beast.’

“What does that mean?” Mallick asked.

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Figfim sighed. “It means, if I’m not mistaken, that Perysion is one of many monsters to come to our plane tonight, and act as heralds for a greater evil.”

“What?”

“Perysion the Ululating Horror is a pawn. Something worse is rising tonight.”

The dwarven woman shivered and sheathed her knives. “Moradin help us. What can this greater evil be?”

“I have no idea, Runhilde,” the gnome replied. “I only hope someone is there to fight it, as we are here to fight its herald.”

Helmut drew his sword and tested its blade with his thumb for the twentieth time. “Someone will.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“It is simple. We live in a world of heroes.”

They quieted and listened to the wind blow as they waited for their titan to rise.

SESSION 56
5th of Suns’ebb
THE END


“Gorgoldand,” Dartan gasped. “That’s him. Quickly, shatter the mirror.”

“It doesn’t break,” Edge grunted as he bashed his fists against the looking glass. In its reflection, they saw Gorgoldand, the emaciated wizard, chained to the wall. His once-proud white beard was matted and filthy.

“You must solve the puzzle,” the skull chattered behind them. “Yes, that is the way.”

Broldek turned on it. “For a thing that claims to not remember anything, you certainly do know everything about this place that may lead us to a sorry end. This stinks of a trap. It was too easy. I don’t trust you.”

The skull floated there. Its feminine voice sounded hurt. “Why do you attack me? I can only recall small things, one at a time. I don’t know why I know about the Gauntlet. I don’t enjoy knowing everything but the solutions to your puzzles, and I am troubled to know you do not trust me. What harm can I do?”

Dartan put a hand on Broldek’s shoulder. “Leave Bree alone.”

The troll turned. “But…” He stopped when he saw the look in Dartan’s steely eyes. “Dartan, don’t be a fool. It’s not your friend.”

“Maybe she isn’t. Not really. I’ll be the judge, and until she gives us reason to believe she’s on Crow’s side, don’t do a thing against her.”

“Dartan, this doesn’t…”

“Don’t. Touch. Her.” Dartan’s eyes flashed, and the muscles beneath his brow twitched. The message was clear, and Broldek backed down, though he felt something crawling inside his gut.

“Thank you, my old friend,” Bree said. “What of the mirror?”

Dartan sighed and looked at it again. “Tirianisporitius. I don’t suppose you know the solution to this do you?”

“No. I wish I did.”

Kizzlorn was studying the fallen skeletal warriors. She took a key from one’s neck and added it to the others. “Eye. Eye… the letter I. Two flowers of the same kind.”

“Irises,” Edge said. “They’re Irises.”

“Hmm. You can spell ‘Iris’ twice with the letters in ‘Tirianisporitius’. Take them away, and you have… ‘Tanpotiu’. Take away an I for an ‘Eye’ and you have ‘Tanpotu’.”

Myramus rolled his eyes. “Nonsense words. What fun.”

Snooky curled his tail thoughtfully as he sat on the ground. Not nonsense. It’s a command word. It will allow us into the mirror.

“Nonsense, like I said,” the canine angel huffed impatiently.

Menerous couldn’t help himself. “Oh, stop it you two. You fight like dogs and cats.” He giggled to himself.

“I, brother, am a hound archon, a celestial servant of our lord Pelor.”

And I am a polymorphed pseudodragon.

“Well,” Menerous said. “That put me in my place.”

Tanpotu… Tan… Pot! That’s it, the other skeleton had a pot on his breastplate. Snooky jumped up into Kizzlorn’s arms, and she kissed his fuzzy little head.

“Tanu,” Kizz said, and the mirror flashed. They stepped through the mirror’s glass toward Gorgoldand, and the mirror shimmered like a rippling pond in their wake.

“Gorgoldand,” Dartan called to the chained form as they entered the room where he was imprisoned.

He looked up at them. “No.” The mirror behind them froze as the last of the Knights left it. The chains fell from the old man’s wrists, and he stood. He changed. He became something larger. A huge cloaked form, vaguely female, with hands that trembled as the last of the illusion melted from them, revealing hideous clawed hands with orange-gold fur. “It’s an honest mistake, though,” the voice croaked menacingly as it pulled its cowl back. “It must be the resemblance.” The sneering thing’s face was a hideous combination of an ogre’s broad face and sparse golden dragonscales. The eyes were a cruel yellow-orange, and seemingly lit from within. Large fangs were set in the grinning jaw. The ears were bat wing-shaped, webbed crescents of gold jutting from an ogre’s matted hide.

Snooky hissed in horror. Dartan and Kizzlorn gasped, and Myramus held up Starfire. Broldek drew his sword and readied to fight. “Where is he?”

“Elsewhere. Safe. I am Glamgorthea, and I am pleased to bring you your end, here in the Gauntlet.”

“You’re half dragon,” Edge said, with his fists at the ready. At Kizzlorn’s command he would unleash his fury.

“Yes,” she chuckled.

Snooky growled. You’re his daughter.

“Yes.”

Dartan’s sword was prepared to stab the thing through the heart. “Gorgoldand had no daughter.”

“That he knew of. I’m afraid it’s a long story, but the short of it is that mother took advantages of his frailties and drugged an ale one night at the Foamy Head tavern in Poddleton, long, long ago. Let’s just say mother always claimed he’d never acknowledge me, because he wouldn’t remember fathering me.” She laughed.

“Lies!” Dartan plunged his sword forward, but Glamgorthea raised her hand and sent him rocketing backward to smash against a wall. He crumpled to the ground, and his sword landed with a clang.

“Hard truths. Mother was interested in creating a new breed of ogre-mage beasts with the blood of dragons. I was- shall I say- an experiment. I was raised to follow her plans and breed a superior race of ogres… but I had ideas of my own, and decided to go my own way the day I ripped her throat out.”

Kizzlorn slowly put Snooky into her backpack, to free her hands for spellcasting. “What is this way?”

“I found and joined my brother, Crow, who had deliciously evil ideas of his own. Profane in every way. Gloriously evil and calculating, he is, and more powerful than even I am. He said I could have you to destroy while he worked on freeing Thuriaq. He should be done soon.”

Dartan stood, shakily, wiping blood from his mouth. His sword’s blade scraped on the stone as he picked it up. “He is evil, isn’t he? Evil, brilliant, and vain.”

She raised her hand again, and it started to glow bright green. “Yes. Oh yes.”

“You know what the problem is with evil, brilliant, and VAIN archvillains?”

“Tell me, Godless.”

“They want to see their enemies’ faces as they are destroyed.”

“Yes, so?”

“Crow knows we can beat you.”

“What?” She laughed.

“You said it yourself: Evil… gloriously evil and calculating. He told you to meet us here so that you could kill us, but he will want to see us die, laughing over us, having had the final word. He isn’t here.”

She furrowed her brow. “So what?”

“So- he lied to you. You’re but one more monster in our way, and he knows your power isn’t great enough to stop us completely. He WANTS us to reach the end, so that we can fail there- and only there.” Her lips parted, and her teeth bared. She trembled, and her fury and fear were plain on her face. Dartan continued to slowly walk toward her. “Evil, brilliant, and vain archvillains do not share their glories. They only use their lackeys, and discard them when they’ve outlived their usefulness. How does it feel to realize you’re a henchman? A simple cog in a large machine. That must hurt.” She growled, eyes wide, and slowly lowered her arm. She seemed to deflate as she gave in to despair. "We are meant to beat you." Tears squeezed from her eyes, and she shook with rage.

“There is an alternative,” Broldek said. “Join us, and add to our strength. We will save the world, and you will have revenge on your brother.” She stared at them. “There is no other way. Join us or we fight you now, and you will die a pawn in Crow’s scheme.” She sobbed, paused, then nodded. She was broken and she knew it.

“Good,” Kizzlorn said. “Where is he?”

“Below. There is a lower level, and there is a passage to Thuriaq’s gate.”

Myramus stepped forward. “Kneel, Glamgorthea, and renounce your evils. Swear to Pelor that you will not turn on us once our mission is done, and that you will mean Gorgoldand or the people of Greyhawk no further ill. Swear it.”

“I… I do. I renounce evil, in Pelor’s name.” She kneeled on the floor and bowed her head in misery. “I do so swear that I will abandon wickedness, and not turn on you when Crow is defeated. Nor will I attempt to destroy my father. I will join the light. Oh, I… ahuh ahuh huh…” She wept into her hands.

“Pelor has heard your plea, child, and will judge you.” He raised his sword. “Right now.” He brought Starfire down through her neck, severing her head and killing her instantly. Her hulking body disappeared in a flash of white light, and then she was no more.

Bree the floating skull’s jaw dropped open in amazement, and Myramus sheathed his sword. “I must say, Snooky old chap, that worked marvelously.”

Thank you. While Glamgorthea had extolled the virtues of Crow’s plan, Snooky had telepathically spoken to the Knights and suggested that Dartan shake her confidence by pointing out that Crow had betrayed her. Then, Myramus would strike her down in her moment of greatest weakness. I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d go through with it, Myramus, Snooky said. Killing her as she pledged an oath to Pelor. It doesn’t seem sporting.

“A painless death and a deathbed conversion. We don’t have the convenience of taking her at her word, so I ended her life here. We did ourselves- and her- a world of good.”

What if she were telling the truth, though?

“Then Pelor will know it and judge her truly, as I told her. Her soul may well have been saved. For now, though, we have things to do, and we couldn’t be bothered to worry about her. You were right.”

I’m glad to hear it. Shall we move on?

“Let’s.”

They left through the now-funtioning mirror. Kizzlorn scratched Snooky behind his ears as they went. “Good thinking, Snooky. I’m glad you’re here.” The pseudodragon purred in her arms as they made their way downward, back through the Gauntlet.

MORE TO COME…
 
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