14th of Ready’reat
“Hey, what the…” Dommeruth sat up and slapped his hands to all his pockets. “Where’s my… where’s the gems?”
The Knights sat by the small campfire, cooking up some goodies. Kizzlorn didn’t look up from the bacon she was pushing about in the skillet. “Gone.”
The dwarf stood up angrily. “WHERE THEY GONE?”
“We took them.”
“What! Why? You STOLE my GEMS?”
“They only became yours after you stole them from the dragon.”
“But… that… you stole them from me? Thieves in the night??”
Vek spoke. “We saved your life. You took a hefty severance package from Acessiwal yesterday. We took a put-up-with-the-annoying-dwarf tax. Which just happened to be everything.”
The red-faced dwarf raged. “That’s not fair, and it’s not right! Taking from the dragon as… as payment for hard work is…”
“No different from our taking from you for rescuing you from the dragon,” Edge interrupted. His eyes gleamed as he watched the dwarf, ready for any sudden moves.
“I had to work under a lich as my immediate superior, with a white dragon over him!” he yelled. The dwarf had been making plans in his dreams on how he’d spend the money. Now, it was all gone. He sniffled and spoke in a small voice. “It’s not fair.”
Jamison stepped forward. “Tell you what. Here’s two hundred gold pieces. With that, you can maybe find a caravan heading south. You’ll be all right. Take this ring of sustenance, and take these heavy pelts. You should be fine.”
The dwarf wrapped himself in furs and took the pouch of gold. It was more than he’d ever owned at one time, but he still had the ghost of his gems floating about him. He cast them a baleful look as he went to leave. “Fine, I’ll go. Just know that I’ll tell everyone I meet of how I was rescued from imprisonment and forced labor… to be mugged and set loose into the wild.” He turned and left.
Kizzlorn sighed and looked at her partymates. Vek, Edge, and Grumbar weren’t moved by the dwarf’s heartbreak. Only Jamison seemed to show signs of doubt.
Then, from the hallway, the dwarf’s echoed voice: “Dammit. Can someone help me over the ice pit?”
Later, as they were walking through the hallways of Coldheart to pick up where they’d left off, Kizzlorn voiced her thoughts. “I’m not so certain we did the right thing.”
Edge replied “There was a great deal of money and we took it. We now have more money. That seems right to me.”
Vek added “Think of it this way, Kizz. That was the dragon’s money… and we can now use it to help rebuild Verbobonc. You wouldn’t mind stealing from Acessiwal himself, would you?”
“No, but that’s different.”
“The dwarf stole from the dragon. I think the dwarf rather liked it here… he was well fed and spared from the terrors of the sky that his fellow villagers had feared. He only came with us when he thought he could get away with the gems.”
“That just sounds like rationalization.”
“It might well be… but we will put that money to good use. We don’t need luxury… we’re wealthy enough. We’ll devote that money to Verbobonc. What would the dwarf have used it for? Wealth and comfort, most like.”
Kizzlorn accepted this, and they walked on. “Vek, did he say the word ‘lich’?”
“Yes. I think whoever the dragon's old captain was twenty years ago… he found a similar way to bypass old age, if you will. Acessiwal’s right hand man may well be as undead as I am. We’re in for a good fight.”
This time they descended to Coldheart’s lower level. They killed an ice golem straight off, which Grumbar said was a nice way to start the day.
They found a large underground lake. Here, about a dozen ogres were working tirelessly, harvesting huge blocks of ice from the lake and putting them on sleds to be brought elsewhere. “This is where they get the ice to make their golems,” Jamison said. “Wanna kill ‘em?”
Edge cracked his knuckles. “Of course!”
They swept into the room like a hell of blades and magic. Within a moment, each ogre was dead. “Stupid ogres fell down too easy,” Grumbar complained.
Jamison leaned against the doorway to the lake’s surface, smiling. “Ahh, come on, Grumby. You know we’re… you know YOU’RE too powerful for any number of puny ogres.”
Grumbar shuffled his feet and spoke dejectedly. “Damn right.”
Vek looked over at Jamison and raised his hand. A spell flew out. Jamison’s eyes widened… he knew which spell that was. He gasped as the spell shot straight past him, into the creature that was running up the corridor. It screamed as it lit up with greenish fire, but it didn’t disappear. It ran up to Jamison and cut into him with its sword. Jamison fell sprawling across the ice.
“Everyone, wait!” Jamison yelled. He took something out of his knapsack.
Vek flexed his fingers and readied to destroy. “Whatever you’re doing, do it quick… this thing looks deadly.”
The thing was a half-orc, female, mean as hell and bearing a huge orcish double axe. It roared and advanced.
“QUICKLY, Jamison…”
Then, Jamison held up a crystal. He shouted a word, and his eyes went dead. His arm fell limply to the ice. The half-orc snarled, then stopped. It lowered the double axe, smiled, and waved. “Hi guys!”
The others stared. The half-orc dropped the axe and wandered over to Jamison’s body, where Scratch had come out of the knapsack and was nuzzling at Jamison, squirking in a concerned manner. “I haven’t ever used that spell, thought it’d be fun. It is. I never realized how small you all look to someone from this height. Hey, Scratch, it’s me!”
The weasel bared its tiny teeth at the half-orc, ready to die to defend Jamison from the beast.
“Scratch, it’s me… Jamison! C’mere, you!”
Scratch chattered, confused, then allowed itself to be picked up. Jamison the female half-orc cuddled his beloved weasel.
“That’s weird,” Grumbar said. He straightened his hair somewhat, then sauntered forward. “Hi, I’m Grumbar. You, uh… you dwell in caverns of darkness much?” Jamison gave Grumbar a shocked look of disgust. Grumbar tried another approach. “I like your axe thing.”
Kizzlorn rubbed her temples. She burst out laughing. “Grumbar, don’t you get it? That’s Jamison.”
“Yeah, I got it. …What??”
“Jam-I-son.” Kizzlorn was doubled up on the lake’s icy surface now, clutching her belly, laughing from it all.
The female half-orc nodded and smiled. “Jame Zon,” she said.
Grumbar made a face. “UGH! Gross. Do we keep her now?”
Jamison bent and picked up his soulless human body. “No. I get to live in this body for a number of hours. After that, we’ll have to deal with her again when I transfer back to myself.” He strapped his corpse to his back, where it hung in a morbid fashion. “Let’s go!”
Kizzlorn stood up, wiping tears from her eyes. It felt good to laugh again, she thought to herself. She couldn’t stop giggling for several minutes.
Grumbar mumbled to himself. “Stupid Jamison, lookin’ all saucy…” At this point, Kizzlorn lost it again and collapsed to the ground, laughing herself breathless.
With Jamison leading them, they wandered through the caverns, finding ogres and taking them out after their half-orc boss (whoever it was Jamison had taken over looked to be a fairly important leader in the caverns) distracted them. They released several prisoners they’d found in holding cells down in the darkness. These were given some gold and furs and told to flee.
“Are we almost done down here?” Jamison asked.
Vek answered ”There are a few more rooms. What’s the hurry?”
“The sooner we get done down here, the sooner we can move back up to the upper levels.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“YOU have… you’re a lich.”
“Jamison, the sooner we get to the upper levels, the sooner we get to face Acessiwal for the last time.”
Kizzlorn looked at him. “Well, each time, we hope it’ll be the last time. He’s too crafty.”
Vek said “He contacted me last night. The dragon says he won’t flee if the battle goes poorly for him. He’s laid a challenge to us to fight to the death.”
“With the safety off,” Jamison said softly.
Kizz said “You don’t sound too certain of our chances, Vek. Can we win this?”
“I don’t know.”
NEXT: White Hell
