Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
As we set off on our way tracing the route indicated by Janga’s magic, there was a shimmering in the air. Flanked by the almost spectral figure of Manzorian, Bob the tiny goblin archer was returned to us once again. The ghostly figure of Manzorian nodded once, and then was simply gone once again. Having re-united with him once again, we picked our way along the base of a cast rocky crag jutting from the canyon’s floor. At the pinnacle of the rock stood an exotic domed tower, with a black spire twisting over from behind it like a scorpion’s tail.
Drawing a shortsword, Flynne shot upwards towards the tower, and after a minute or two waved us all to follow him. We all rose up under our own powers; Janga and Fez calling on the powers of winged boots, whilst I helped Bob fly up by pulling him up onto my mystical summoned horse.
At the top we could see that the polished obsidian of the tower was blocked up with a door of sorts – a plug of solid pink crystal. As I began to sort through my repertoire of spells, scrolls and enchanted items Janga pulled a short metal rod from his backpack and rang it. The pink crystal ground slowly into the floor and I packed my equipment away again as the gnome grinned at me.
.oOo.
Within was a simply decorated foyer whose walls were lined with paintings, statues and a lush carpet. The arched windows flooded the room with coloured light, although careful scrutiny showed that they were actually carefully modified walls of pure force.
The room inside was pleasantly warm, and superb music filled the room; a talent which was so skilled that I was able to recognise it as from a ‘sublime chord’ – a skilled bard I had heard of only in legends.
The massive double-doors opposite us were another massive slab of rose quartz, through which glimmers of light could be seen, but nothing moved beyond. As I looked around the room and examined the art, I could hear behind me the ringing of Janga’s Chime of Opening and the grinding of the second pink crystal door as it sank into the floor.
“Bugger,” shouted Flynne, and I could hear his bowstring stretching even as I turned around.
In front of me were four charging mounted figures, their horses hooves clattering strangely on the polished stone floor in the room beyond. The four were each styled after a different figure of lore – Death, War, Famine and Pestilence rode down upon us.
With his bow already drawn, Flynne fired an arrow I could recognise as being made of cold iron from the colour of its fletchings. Raising a few sparks, the arrow glanced off the foe. He pulled a silver arrow out of his deep quiver and fired that; it sparked off almost exactly the same spot cracking away a small chip off his target. Bob produced a much smaller arrow cast from polished adamantine and fired it – missing.
A second shot sank deeply into the moving statue of War, and the goblin kept firing. The areas where his arrows struck left spiders-web cracks around the impact sites. Trying to help my comrades, I dashed away from the painting I had been examining, and cast a spell of hastening. Janga called forth a spell of his own and in a heartbeat the four figures were caught in a roaring pillar of flame.
Which the moving statues simply ignored.
As Fez quaffed a potion and swelled to his familiar towering hag-form, he moved to block the wide doorway as best he could, but was not expecting them to rein in their horses and jab their heels into the creatures’ flanks. Each of the four horses opened their mouths wide and screamed. Vast cones of coloured light blasted out across my comrades and I, and I was too busy blinking away the light and leaping away from blasts of fire and venom which washed over me. When I could see once again, I realised that Bob was jerking in pain as lightning played across him, and Janga was completely static; a statue of black basalt.
There was also a soft thudding as one of the creatures – War – was charging across the thick carpet. As it closed, Fez’s sunblade arced out and carved a deep line along its flank. Shards of glass fell to the floor. As the glassy golem reached me, the ‘rider’ leaned down from its saddle and lashed at me with long jagged claws. I ducked away from several of its swings, but couldn’t avoid all of them and suffered a vicious slash across my chest for my troubles.
Flynne was also cut by one of them, and dashed across the room firing as he dashed out of the door. Stepping out as well, Bob fired 5 accurate shots into ‘War’, and then I summoned up my knowledge of the mystic arts to project the weave into a scream.
Waves of sound crashed across the four crystalline golems, and they quivered and shook under the onslaught. Cracks and flakes of glass appeared amidst a series of shattering noises, and as I gasped to an end and dashed over to Janga, Fez stepped across the room and struck ‘War’ a single blow. The huge glass figure shattered into a million pieces across the floor, even as Fez continued to swing at the already cracked figure of Pestilence next to him.
The three remaining statues focussed on Fez in vain given his thick armour. At the same moment, from outside I could hear a burst of song which was followed by an explosion of fire which washed through the open doorway. It was followed by an imperious female voice which rang out “Intruders! How dare you?”
Flynne dashed back into the room away from the invisible voice and fired repeatedly – the statue form of Pestilence shattered into many thousands of pieces across the carpeted floor. Bob fired as well, and with my teeth gritted I dashed towards the centre of the room ready to try and counter any further spell-songs which might come from the as-yet-unseen sublime chord.
From closer to him, I could see Fez wielding his sunblade with lethal efficiency; in a few powerful strikes he had smashed the Death-golem and was furiously hacking at the remaining one – Famine. It reacted by launching another spray of terrible colours and then hacking out at him leaving a series of bloody rents across his armour.
“Destroy those who invaded my sanctum without invitation,” yelled the unseen melodic voice. “That bastard liche sent you, didn’t he?”
I was suddenly aware that the sound of sunblade-on-glass had ceased. I spun round and could see Fez moving towards me with a blank look in his eyes.
“Guys,” I yelled to the others in sudden panic. “I don’t think Fez is quite himself…”
.oOo.
With a well-aimed shot, Bob shattered the Famine-golem, whilst I grabbed Janga’s stone body and cast a spell which transported us both in an instant away and down to the base of the spire. Hundreds of feet above me, I could hear yelling and two tiny bodies leapt into space from the top of the spire. As they plunged down towards me, I realised that they weren’t slowing down, and that a slightly larger form was leaping into space behind them.
When Flynne and Bob were a few dozen feet above the ground, I cast a rapid spell onto them and they slowed dramatically and touched lightly to the ground. A couple of seconds later, Fez fell silently from the sky and crashed to the floor behind them; his heavy annis-hag form leaving two deep foot-shaped craters in the stony ground.
At the same moment, a glowing door opened in space, and I immediately flung a second spell onto the Dimension Door, which revealed the outline of a towering humanoid winged form.
“We mean you no harm,” I stammered out. “We merely seek to fulfil Balakarde’s legacy.”
“Liars,” came the bellowed reply. “You invaded my sanctum – you were sent by the liche!”
As she said this, she then burst into triumphal song, and in a flash Bob was wreathed in a shroud of colourless mists, and simply froze in place as he was dashing across to me.
Stepping up out of his crater, Fez stomped towards us; as he did so, he turned to the towering winged woman who floated in the air above us. “Mistress,” he intoned. “No liche sent us.”
I took over smoothly, and hastened to explain our story to her; as I did so I tried surreptitiously to ensnare Fez in my tale-telling so that I might slow his reactions should he decide to bring his sunblade down towards me.
When I had finished, she turned to Fez and demanded imperiously,
“If this male has said a word which was untrue, strike his head from his shoulders.”
“Fez… Tell her I told you the truth, Fez…”
His eyes glazed a little further in confusion, then the barbarian turned to the sparkling figure. “He told the truth, mistress.”
“Excellent. Follow me, servant. You may follow once your comrades are freed.”
She cast another spell, and she and Fez stepped through a second glowing door in space.
.oOo.
It took a few minutes to free both Bob and then sing Janga free of his ensnarement. Once we were all ready, we flew back up to the top of the spire and stepped over the glassy rubble into the inner part of the building. There, we could see Fez; restored to his 6 foot ‘normal’ form, wearing a small white apron and sweeping away a few shards of glass with a heavy broom.
Reclining on a sofa was a phenomenally good looking celestial being, whose skin practically shone with an inner light. She beckoned us in with one languorous finger and then ordered Fez to pour us all tea, which he did from a delicate bone-china tea service. Once he had placed the tea set back on the table, she freed him with a gesture, and turned to explain to us.
“The liche Thesselar was once an admirer. He has a small fortress within the fissure. I spurned his advances years ago, and he has been… unfriendly.”
Standing, she led us into her gallery, where huge stained glass windows shone down onto us. She gestured and they went clear as she pointed into the mists of the Wormcrawl Fissure. “I am an artist,” she continued, gesturing at the paintings and sculptures around the walls. Paintings of locations throughout the planes, Sigil next to the Infinite Staircase, Graz’zt beside Ehlonna, mixed with pictures of fearsome worm-eating visages and the like.
Gesturing, she produced a small statuette from thin air – an 8 inch tall figure which was recognisably that of Balakarde.
“I will give you this, which you so clearly seek. If you will do a few small tasks for me. Firstly, destroy the liche Thesselar. Secondly, I would demand 8 works of you, then a good deal of money to recompense me for this item. Oh, and finally… The service of this lummox for one of your years.
Despite having been freed from the mind control spell, I could see Fez staring up at her towering figure, the thoughts clearly visible on his mind – here was the big woman of his dreams.
As we turned to discuss matters in more depth, she made a further offer – to induct me into the secrets of the Sublime Chord…
Drawing a shortsword, Flynne shot upwards towards the tower, and after a minute or two waved us all to follow him. We all rose up under our own powers; Janga and Fez calling on the powers of winged boots, whilst I helped Bob fly up by pulling him up onto my mystical summoned horse.
At the top we could see that the polished obsidian of the tower was blocked up with a door of sorts – a plug of solid pink crystal. As I began to sort through my repertoire of spells, scrolls and enchanted items Janga pulled a short metal rod from his backpack and rang it. The pink crystal ground slowly into the floor and I packed my equipment away again as the gnome grinned at me.
.oOo.
Within was a simply decorated foyer whose walls were lined with paintings, statues and a lush carpet. The arched windows flooded the room with coloured light, although careful scrutiny showed that they were actually carefully modified walls of pure force.
The room inside was pleasantly warm, and superb music filled the room; a talent which was so skilled that I was able to recognise it as from a ‘sublime chord’ – a skilled bard I had heard of only in legends.
The massive double-doors opposite us were another massive slab of rose quartz, through which glimmers of light could be seen, but nothing moved beyond. As I looked around the room and examined the art, I could hear behind me the ringing of Janga’s Chime of Opening and the grinding of the second pink crystal door as it sank into the floor.
“Bugger,” shouted Flynne, and I could hear his bowstring stretching even as I turned around.
In front of me were four charging mounted figures, their horses hooves clattering strangely on the polished stone floor in the room beyond. The four were each styled after a different figure of lore – Death, War, Famine and Pestilence rode down upon us.
With his bow already drawn, Flynne fired an arrow I could recognise as being made of cold iron from the colour of its fletchings. Raising a few sparks, the arrow glanced off the foe. He pulled a silver arrow out of his deep quiver and fired that; it sparked off almost exactly the same spot cracking away a small chip off his target. Bob produced a much smaller arrow cast from polished adamantine and fired it – missing.
A second shot sank deeply into the moving statue of War, and the goblin kept firing. The areas where his arrows struck left spiders-web cracks around the impact sites. Trying to help my comrades, I dashed away from the painting I had been examining, and cast a spell of hastening. Janga called forth a spell of his own and in a heartbeat the four figures were caught in a roaring pillar of flame.
Which the moving statues simply ignored.
As Fez quaffed a potion and swelled to his familiar towering hag-form, he moved to block the wide doorway as best he could, but was not expecting them to rein in their horses and jab their heels into the creatures’ flanks. Each of the four horses opened their mouths wide and screamed. Vast cones of coloured light blasted out across my comrades and I, and I was too busy blinking away the light and leaping away from blasts of fire and venom which washed over me. When I could see once again, I realised that Bob was jerking in pain as lightning played across him, and Janga was completely static; a statue of black basalt.
There was also a soft thudding as one of the creatures – War – was charging across the thick carpet. As it closed, Fez’s sunblade arced out and carved a deep line along its flank. Shards of glass fell to the floor. As the glassy golem reached me, the ‘rider’ leaned down from its saddle and lashed at me with long jagged claws. I ducked away from several of its swings, but couldn’t avoid all of them and suffered a vicious slash across my chest for my troubles.
Flynne was also cut by one of them, and dashed across the room firing as he dashed out of the door. Stepping out as well, Bob fired 5 accurate shots into ‘War’, and then I summoned up my knowledge of the mystic arts to project the weave into a scream.
Waves of sound crashed across the four crystalline golems, and they quivered and shook under the onslaught. Cracks and flakes of glass appeared amidst a series of shattering noises, and as I gasped to an end and dashed over to Janga, Fez stepped across the room and struck ‘War’ a single blow. The huge glass figure shattered into a million pieces across the floor, even as Fez continued to swing at the already cracked figure of Pestilence next to him.
The three remaining statues focussed on Fez in vain given his thick armour. At the same moment, from outside I could hear a burst of song which was followed by an explosion of fire which washed through the open doorway. It was followed by an imperious female voice which rang out “Intruders! How dare you?”
Flynne dashed back into the room away from the invisible voice and fired repeatedly – the statue form of Pestilence shattered into many thousands of pieces across the carpeted floor. Bob fired as well, and with my teeth gritted I dashed towards the centre of the room ready to try and counter any further spell-songs which might come from the as-yet-unseen sublime chord.
From closer to him, I could see Fez wielding his sunblade with lethal efficiency; in a few powerful strikes he had smashed the Death-golem and was furiously hacking at the remaining one – Famine. It reacted by launching another spray of terrible colours and then hacking out at him leaving a series of bloody rents across his armour.
“Destroy those who invaded my sanctum without invitation,” yelled the unseen melodic voice. “That bastard liche sent you, didn’t he?”
I was suddenly aware that the sound of sunblade-on-glass had ceased. I spun round and could see Fez moving towards me with a blank look in his eyes.
“Guys,” I yelled to the others in sudden panic. “I don’t think Fez is quite himself…”
.oOo.
With a well-aimed shot, Bob shattered the Famine-golem, whilst I grabbed Janga’s stone body and cast a spell which transported us both in an instant away and down to the base of the spire. Hundreds of feet above me, I could hear yelling and two tiny bodies leapt into space from the top of the spire. As they plunged down towards me, I realised that they weren’t slowing down, and that a slightly larger form was leaping into space behind them.
When Flynne and Bob were a few dozen feet above the ground, I cast a rapid spell onto them and they slowed dramatically and touched lightly to the ground. A couple of seconds later, Fez fell silently from the sky and crashed to the floor behind them; his heavy annis-hag form leaving two deep foot-shaped craters in the stony ground.
At the same moment, a glowing door opened in space, and I immediately flung a second spell onto the Dimension Door, which revealed the outline of a towering humanoid winged form.
“We mean you no harm,” I stammered out. “We merely seek to fulfil Balakarde’s legacy.”
“Liars,” came the bellowed reply. “You invaded my sanctum – you were sent by the liche!”
As she said this, she then burst into triumphal song, and in a flash Bob was wreathed in a shroud of colourless mists, and simply froze in place as he was dashing across to me.
Stepping up out of his crater, Fez stomped towards us; as he did so, he turned to the towering winged woman who floated in the air above us. “Mistress,” he intoned. “No liche sent us.”
I took over smoothly, and hastened to explain our story to her; as I did so I tried surreptitiously to ensnare Fez in my tale-telling so that I might slow his reactions should he decide to bring his sunblade down towards me.
When I had finished, she turned to Fez and demanded imperiously,
“If this male has said a word which was untrue, strike his head from his shoulders.”
“Fez… Tell her I told you the truth, Fez…”
His eyes glazed a little further in confusion, then the barbarian turned to the sparkling figure. “He told the truth, mistress.”
“Excellent. Follow me, servant. You may follow once your comrades are freed.”
She cast another spell, and she and Fez stepped through a second glowing door in space.
.oOo.
It took a few minutes to free both Bob and then sing Janga free of his ensnarement. Once we were all ready, we flew back up to the top of the spire and stepped over the glassy rubble into the inner part of the building. There, we could see Fez; restored to his 6 foot ‘normal’ form, wearing a small white apron and sweeping away a few shards of glass with a heavy broom.
Reclining on a sofa was a phenomenally good looking celestial being, whose skin practically shone with an inner light. She beckoned us in with one languorous finger and then ordered Fez to pour us all tea, which he did from a delicate bone-china tea service. Once he had placed the tea set back on the table, she freed him with a gesture, and turned to explain to us.
“The liche Thesselar was once an admirer. He has a small fortress within the fissure. I spurned his advances years ago, and he has been… unfriendly.”
Standing, she led us into her gallery, where huge stained glass windows shone down onto us. She gestured and they went clear as she pointed into the mists of the Wormcrawl Fissure. “I am an artist,” she continued, gesturing at the paintings and sculptures around the walls. Paintings of locations throughout the planes, Sigil next to the Infinite Staircase, Graz’zt beside Ehlonna, mixed with pictures of fearsome worm-eating visages and the like.
Gesturing, she produced a small statuette from thin air – an 8 inch tall figure which was recognisably that of Balakarde.
“I will give you this, which you so clearly seek. If you will do a few small tasks for me. Firstly, destroy the liche Thesselar. Secondly, I would demand 8 works of you, then a good deal of money to recompense me for this item. Oh, and finally… The service of this lummox for one of your years.
Despite having been freed from the mind control spell, I could see Fez staring up at her towering figure, the thoughts clearly visible on his mind – here was the big woman of his dreams.
As we turned to discuss matters in more depth, she made a further offer – to induct me into the secrets of the Sublime Chord…
