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Reaping 23, CY 593
57: In which it is shown that sometimes your captives talk before you bring back the torturer.
“You’ll start by telling us how this construct is controlled,” Heydricus says.
“And I have your word as a gentleman that you’ll let me live?” Keak asks. The elf is rather nondescript, save for a faint stubble of soft, downy hair around his jawline that might call his elven heritage into question, and a pair of scars that run from the corners of his mouth, pulling his face down in a perpetual frown. When he smiles, which is actually most of the time, the scars remind Prisantha of a puppet—the sort that are always beating one another with tiny swords in the marketplace shows.
“I’ll let you live,” Heydricus says. “But I’ll have your magic, your spellbooks, and you’ll be exiled from this plane. You must submit to a geas and give your oath never to return.”
Keak nods. “Well, can I choose the plane?”
“No.” Heydricus says. “Do you accept my terms?”
Keak sighs. He frowns for real this time, and then sighs again. “Okay, I accept. This vessel is the Headsman’s Whore, an Iuzian construct on loan to us, and it is controlled via the brain room. You can get into the brain room through the purple worm’s run.”
“And where is the worm?”
“I ordered it below—it is tame and only attacks on command.”
“And the rest of the Boneshadow?”
“There is no ‘rest of the Boneshadow’. You’ve killed them all, and I just quit.” Keak smiles amiably. “Look, I assume you were the ones causing all the trouble here in Tenh? The ones who killed Maskeylene, and Martak and old what’s his name?”
“Suel?” Prisantha offers.
“Ra Mohn?” Heydricus suggests.
“Amyryth?” Jespo chimes in. “No, no, she was one of ours.”
“Festering,” Dabus states. “Yes, we killed him.”
“Well,” Keak says brightly, “we succeeded in half of our mission. We found you.”
-----
The brain-room proves to be a small chamber at the bottom of a labrynthine complex of twisting spherical passages, no larger than a water-closet, and festooned with niches containing hundreds of humanoid and giantish skulls.
The entire place seems to throb inside the Liberator’s heads, and a faint sepulchural voice is barely audible. “Get out.”
The intruders feel a compulsion to leave the room, and never return. Prisantha disregards the enchantment, and Heydricus as a Holy Liberator is immune to the effect.
They discuss briefly the best way to deal with the place, when Heydricus strikes upon a plan. “Well,” he says, “we’ll just wait until it gets to Nevond Nevnend. Then it will fall into our trap.”
“What trap?” Prisantha asks. “Why wait?”
“Well,” Heydricus says meaningfully, arching his eyebrows, “it will certainly be destroyed at Nevond Nevnend.”
“I fail to see how,” Prisantha says.
“Can I see you outside for a moment?” Heydricus asks. Without waiting for a reply, he leaves the chamber.
“Geeeeet ouuuuuut.”
“Yes, yes, I’m leaving,” Pris says. She follows Heydricus onto the deck and flies with him into the air high above the construct.
“What is with you,” she demands to know. “Would you have this thing destroy your capital?”
“I was bluffing it, Pris,” Heydricus snaps. “And you blew it.”
“Well, it wasn’t a very good bluff,” Prisantha says.
“You never know how good your bluff is until you see its results.”
“That’s awfully optimistic. And since when do you shirk from battle?”
“There is a time and place for everything, Pris. Aren’t you the one who is always advocating more strategy?”
“In this case, we should just kill it.”
“How? I don’t know how, and I don’t feel like killing it.”
“I have plenty of spells left. I suggest we just pound away at it.”
“Thanks for the insight, Thrommel, but in case you didn’t notice, it’s the size of Cur’ruth.”
“How is it you have a problem with brute force all of a sudden? Isn’t that your usual approach?”
“Right now, I’d rather just park the thing.”
“Heydricus, your problem is that you’ve grown imperious. That’s why your bluff was foiled. If you mean to implement a strategy, discussing it with your companions beforehand would be wise.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” Heydricus snaps.
“I suppose that we’ve knocked on the damn door so many times, I’ve just given up.”
“Quitters never win, Pris.”
“I’m not speaking to you,” Pris says, and she flies back to the Headsman’s Whore to join the rest of her companions.
In the end, it is observed that without any guidance, the construct travels always into the wind. In a matter of hours, it has reversed its course, and heads back toward the mountains that form Tenh’s northern border.
Before they leave, Prisantha flies to the ground and follows the construct’s tracks until she is able to find Lucius’ magic items, and scrape a sizable piece of the Sheildlander assassin from the inside of a half-buried jerkin.
-----
Lucius Maturin has been through Hell. Killed by giants in the Temple of Elemental Evil, his soul had only begun to taste its eternal reward when it was called back into his filthy corpse, and subjected to the greater will of a powerful demonic force. He was forced to witness and assist while his body and mind plotted against his former companions and only true friends. Lucius led the cadaverous ones in their missions against the Liberators and the cause of Good, and recoiled from the foul Iuzian rituals he was forced to participate in.
That he would wish to be immediately atoned upon his resurrection should come as no surprise.
-----
“I poisoned Esril?” Lucius asks. “I really don’t recall.” The dark-haired assassin looks like he has seen better days. He sits up in a bed in Dabus’ room, where the cleric can tend to his health.
“Weren’t you always threatening to poison Little Leaf?” Jespo says.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have said so,” Lucius observes. “I meant to kill him. But how did I die?”
As part of Tritherion’s Grace, Lucius’ memories since his death have been suppressed. The Great Lord of Freedom agreed to remove the Iuzian taint from the assassin’s soul, provided he agree to come into the direct service of The Liberator in the cause against Iuz, and earnestly atone for his wrongdoings. In Lucius’ case, the only wrongdoings he sincerely regretted were the ones that took place after he died.
“Well, which time?” Heydricus asks. “You were crushed by giants, along with Keriann, the elves and . . . oh, hell. The monk.”
“Ren Qi!” Jepso says. “I never knew her.”
“And Daniere died in that fight as well,” Prisantha adds. “That was just before I joined you,” she smiles mistily at Heydricus, who seems not to notice.
“Then, a few days ago, you threw yourself under the wheel of a juggernaut to evade capture,” Heydricus says. “You had joined the Boneshadow. We scraped you out of your tunic, and here you are.”
“We have taken a captive, an elf by the name of Keak, and he tells us that you were given to the group as a gift by the priestess Aletha,” Jespo says. “Their rogue had grown intractable, it seems.”
“A captive?” Lucius sits up in his sick-bed. “Do you need me to . . .”
“No, no,” Heydricus says. “You rest. We’ll deal with Keak.”
“I am forever in your debt,” Lucius says to the group. “From now on, your enemies? They disappear. You won’t regret this.”
And so the remaining Heroes of the Temple are reunited.
“One more thing,” Lucius says as his friends prepare to leave. “Who are the ‘druid f-ckers’?
-----
Over the course of the next few days Keak tells the Liberators that the Boneshadow had been given the location of the Iuzian war-juggernaut, hidden in the Tenha mountains, and commanded to retrieve it, take control of it, then find whatever was causing trouble in Tenh, and kill it dead.
“Despite popular belief we were never servitors of Iuz, per se,” Keak explains. “We had no traffic with his priests save to take assignments and collect our payments. The Boneshadow had relationships with clerics of Hextor, for when we were in need of clerical magic. Occasionally, we would go to the priesthood of Pholtus.”
“Pholtus?” Heydricus asks, surprise plain on his face.
“They are accommodating enough, if you disguise yourself, and make the right pious noises,” Keak explains craftily.
“Yet you work for Iuz,” Prisantha says.
“That does not mean we serve him. We are mercenaries, not religious zealots. The Boneheart serve no master save for the highest bidder. Iuz simply happens to be the highest bidder in our line of work. No servant of Iuz is free from his tyranny. That is why their organization is so worm-ridden and inept. They spend themselves out backbiting and infighting to gain their Master’s attention, or avoid it, depending on their circumstances.”
Regarding the other members of the Boneheart, Keak says that he is aware that Festering was involved in some sort of secret project, and that Maskeleyne was fleeing Iuzian assassins at the time of his early (if not entirely unexpected) demise. Cranzer of Riftcrag is also on the outs with the Dorrakan powers-that-be, although the elf is not sure what his offense might have been. Pansashek in particular has proven to be a rising star among the servitors of Iuz, and Halga has been recently banished from her Master’s presence for some slight against Aletha.
“That’s fine,” Heydricus says. “Now tell us about Chendl.”
“Chendl?” the elf asks. “What do you want to know? The cadaverous ones made from the bodies of your friends? Panshazek made them and set them against you before fleeing the Marklands. Your Esril was killed by Lucius, not the Boneheart.”
“That’s good to know,” Heydricus says, “but I want the name of your Iuzian contacts within Furyondy, and the location of all your safehouses.”
“No,” Keak says. “Never.”
“We have an arrangement,” Heydricus reminds him.
“You ask me to dishonor myself and break promises made in good faith,” Keak retorts, “and I will do no such thing.”
“Yet you yourself say that you serve no cause save gold,” Prisantha says, “and your loyalty is given to the highest bidder. We offer you your life. Do you expect to find a higher bidder?”
Keak smiles at Prisantha and thinks for a moment, then says, “You have trapped me with my own logic, my lady. Very well, here it is.”
And so he dutifully commits to paper the names of every Iuzian contact and safe-house he knows of in Furyondy, Veluna, Verbobonc and Nyrond. The list is predictably long, but to the Liberator’s surprise includes King Belvor’s personal baker.
“Wow, that’s bad,” Heydricus says.
Keak is subjected to a pair of geas spells: first, that he “never harm nor allow to come to any harm through action or inaction the Liberators of Tenh”, and secondly to “never return to the prime material plane.”
Keak is supplied with mundane gear and weapons, then plane shifted to Carceri, sans spellbook.
Reaping 23, CY 593
57: In which it is shown that sometimes your captives talk before you bring back the torturer.
“You’ll start by telling us how this construct is controlled,” Heydricus says.
“And I have your word as a gentleman that you’ll let me live?” Keak asks. The elf is rather nondescript, save for a faint stubble of soft, downy hair around his jawline that might call his elven heritage into question, and a pair of scars that run from the corners of his mouth, pulling his face down in a perpetual frown. When he smiles, which is actually most of the time, the scars remind Prisantha of a puppet—the sort that are always beating one another with tiny swords in the marketplace shows.
“I’ll let you live,” Heydricus says. “But I’ll have your magic, your spellbooks, and you’ll be exiled from this plane. You must submit to a geas and give your oath never to return.”
Keak nods. “Well, can I choose the plane?”
“No.” Heydricus says. “Do you accept my terms?”
Keak sighs. He frowns for real this time, and then sighs again. “Okay, I accept. This vessel is the Headsman’s Whore, an Iuzian construct on loan to us, and it is controlled via the brain room. You can get into the brain room through the purple worm’s run.”
“And where is the worm?”
“I ordered it below—it is tame and only attacks on command.”
“And the rest of the Boneshadow?”
“There is no ‘rest of the Boneshadow’. You’ve killed them all, and I just quit.” Keak smiles amiably. “Look, I assume you were the ones causing all the trouble here in Tenh? The ones who killed Maskeylene, and Martak and old what’s his name?”
“Suel?” Prisantha offers.
“Ra Mohn?” Heydricus suggests.
“Amyryth?” Jespo chimes in. “No, no, she was one of ours.”
“Festering,” Dabus states. “Yes, we killed him.”
“Well,” Keak says brightly, “we succeeded in half of our mission. We found you.”
-----
The brain-room proves to be a small chamber at the bottom of a labrynthine complex of twisting spherical passages, no larger than a water-closet, and festooned with niches containing hundreds of humanoid and giantish skulls.
The entire place seems to throb inside the Liberator’s heads, and a faint sepulchural voice is barely audible. “Get out.”
The intruders feel a compulsion to leave the room, and never return. Prisantha disregards the enchantment, and Heydricus as a Holy Liberator is immune to the effect.
They discuss briefly the best way to deal with the place, when Heydricus strikes upon a plan. “Well,” he says, “we’ll just wait until it gets to Nevond Nevnend. Then it will fall into our trap.”
“What trap?” Prisantha asks. “Why wait?”
“Well,” Heydricus says meaningfully, arching his eyebrows, “it will certainly be destroyed at Nevond Nevnend.”
“I fail to see how,” Prisantha says.
“Can I see you outside for a moment?” Heydricus asks. Without waiting for a reply, he leaves the chamber.
“Geeeeet ouuuuuut.”
“Yes, yes, I’m leaving,” Pris says. She follows Heydricus onto the deck and flies with him into the air high above the construct.
“What is with you,” she demands to know. “Would you have this thing destroy your capital?”
“I was bluffing it, Pris,” Heydricus snaps. “And you blew it.”
“Well, it wasn’t a very good bluff,” Prisantha says.
“You never know how good your bluff is until you see its results.”
“That’s awfully optimistic. And since when do you shirk from battle?”
“There is a time and place for everything, Pris. Aren’t you the one who is always advocating more strategy?”
“In this case, we should just kill it.”
“How? I don’t know how, and I don’t feel like killing it.”
“I have plenty of spells left. I suggest we just pound away at it.”
“Thanks for the insight, Thrommel, but in case you didn’t notice, it’s the size of Cur’ruth.”
“How is it you have a problem with brute force all of a sudden? Isn’t that your usual approach?”
“Right now, I’d rather just park the thing.”
“Heydricus, your problem is that you’ve grown imperious. That’s why your bluff was foiled. If you mean to implement a strategy, discussing it with your companions beforehand would be wise.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” Heydricus snaps.
“I suppose that we’ve knocked on the damn door so many times, I’ve just given up.”
“Quitters never win, Pris.”
“I’m not speaking to you,” Pris says, and she flies back to the Headsman’s Whore to join the rest of her companions.
In the end, it is observed that without any guidance, the construct travels always into the wind. In a matter of hours, it has reversed its course, and heads back toward the mountains that form Tenh’s northern border.
Before they leave, Prisantha flies to the ground and follows the construct’s tracks until she is able to find Lucius’ magic items, and scrape a sizable piece of the Sheildlander assassin from the inside of a half-buried jerkin.
-----
Lucius Maturin has been through Hell. Killed by giants in the Temple of Elemental Evil, his soul had only begun to taste its eternal reward when it was called back into his filthy corpse, and subjected to the greater will of a powerful demonic force. He was forced to witness and assist while his body and mind plotted against his former companions and only true friends. Lucius led the cadaverous ones in their missions against the Liberators and the cause of Good, and recoiled from the foul Iuzian rituals he was forced to participate in.
That he would wish to be immediately atoned upon his resurrection should come as no surprise.
-----
“I poisoned Esril?” Lucius asks. “I really don’t recall.” The dark-haired assassin looks like he has seen better days. He sits up in a bed in Dabus’ room, where the cleric can tend to his health.
“Weren’t you always threatening to poison Little Leaf?” Jespo says.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have said so,” Lucius observes. “I meant to kill him. But how did I die?”
As part of Tritherion’s Grace, Lucius’ memories since his death have been suppressed. The Great Lord of Freedom agreed to remove the Iuzian taint from the assassin’s soul, provided he agree to come into the direct service of The Liberator in the cause against Iuz, and earnestly atone for his wrongdoings. In Lucius’ case, the only wrongdoings he sincerely regretted were the ones that took place after he died.
“Well, which time?” Heydricus asks. “You were crushed by giants, along with Keriann, the elves and . . . oh, hell. The monk.”
“Ren Qi!” Jepso says. “I never knew her.”
“And Daniere died in that fight as well,” Prisantha adds. “That was just before I joined you,” she smiles mistily at Heydricus, who seems not to notice.
“Then, a few days ago, you threw yourself under the wheel of a juggernaut to evade capture,” Heydricus says. “You had joined the Boneshadow. We scraped you out of your tunic, and here you are.”
“We have taken a captive, an elf by the name of Keak, and he tells us that you were given to the group as a gift by the priestess Aletha,” Jespo says. “Their rogue had grown intractable, it seems.”
“A captive?” Lucius sits up in his sick-bed. “Do you need me to . . .”
“No, no,” Heydricus says. “You rest. We’ll deal with Keak.”
“I am forever in your debt,” Lucius says to the group. “From now on, your enemies? They disappear. You won’t regret this.”
And so the remaining Heroes of the Temple are reunited.
“One more thing,” Lucius says as his friends prepare to leave. “Who are the ‘druid f-ckers’?
-----
Over the course of the next few days Keak tells the Liberators that the Boneshadow had been given the location of the Iuzian war-juggernaut, hidden in the Tenha mountains, and commanded to retrieve it, take control of it, then find whatever was causing trouble in Tenh, and kill it dead.
“Despite popular belief we were never servitors of Iuz, per se,” Keak explains. “We had no traffic with his priests save to take assignments and collect our payments. The Boneshadow had relationships with clerics of Hextor, for when we were in need of clerical magic. Occasionally, we would go to the priesthood of Pholtus.”
“Pholtus?” Heydricus asks, surprise plain on his face.
“They are accommodating enough, if you disguise yourself, and make the right pious noises,” Keak explains craftily.
“Yet you work for Iuz,” Prisantha says.
“That does not mean we serve him. We are mercenaries, not religious zealots. The Boneheart serve no master save for the highest bidder. Iuz simply happens to be the highest bidder in our line of work. No servant of Iuz is free from his tyranny. That is why their organization is so worm-ridden and inept. They spend themselves out backbiting and infighting to gain their Master’s attention, or avoid it, depending on their circumstances.”
Regarding the other members of the Boneheart, Keak says that he is aware that Festering was involved in some sort of secret project, and that Maskeleyne was fleeing Iuzian assassins at the time of his early (if not entirely unexpected) demise. Cranzer of Riftcrag is also on the outs with the Dorrakan powers-that-be, although the elf is not sure what his offense might have been. Pansashek in particular has proven to be a rising star among the servitors of Iuz, and Halga has been recently banished from her Master’s presence for some slight against Aletha.
“That’s fine,” Heydricus says. “Now tell us about Chendl.”
“Chendl?” the elf asks. “What do you want to know? The cadaverous ones made from the bodies of your friends? Panshazek made them and set them against you before fleeing the Marklands. Your Esril was killed by Lucius, not the Boneheart.”
“That’s good to know,” Heydricus says, “but I want the name of your Iuzian contacts within Furyondy, and the location of all your safehouses.”
“No,” Keak says. “Never.”
“We have an arrangement,” Heydricus reminds him.
“You ask me to dishonor myself and break promises made in good faith,” Keak retorts, “and I will do no such thing.”
“Yet you yourself say that you serve no cause save gold,” Prisantha says, “and your loyalty is given to the highest bidder. We offer you your life. Do you expect to find a higher bidder?”
Keak smiles at Prisantha and thinks for a moment, then says, “You have trapped me with my own logic, my lady. Very well, here it is.”
And so he dutifully commits to paper the names of every Iuzian contact and safe-house he knows of in Furyondy, Veluna, Verbobonc and Nyrond. The list is predictably long, but to the Liberator’s surprise includes King Belvor’s personal baker.
“Wow, that’s bad,” Heydricus says.
Keak is subjected to a pair of geas spells: first, that he “never harm nor allow to come to any harm through action or inaction the Liberators of Tenh”, and secondly to “never return to the prime material plane.”
Keak is supplied with mundane gear and weapons, then plane shifted to Carceri, sans spellbook.
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