The Rise of Felskein [Completed]

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 1

“You building a new friend there?” Kormak said, staring at the strange bits of metal strewn about around Keeper.

Keeper shook his head. “Harold wanted for a mechanical construct to use as a mount. I am in the midst of building it.”

“Why doesn't he just get a horse or something?”

“When I am complete, he will have something like a horse.”

“We're flying over what looks like the ruins of some massive city,” Bail said. “We've been over it for a couple hours and it still stretches to the horizon in every direction.”

“Endemore,” Keeper said, without looking up from the bits he was tinkering with.

“How do you know that? No wait, the Nexus told you. Right?” Kormak said.

“Correct.”

“Well, looking at a ruined city has to be more interesting than watching Keeper,” Kormak said, following Bail towards the edge of the Skyland.

He looked down at a seemingly endless sprawl of tumbled stone, creeping vines, and a thick mass of trees. Some towering structures reached hundreds of feet into the air despite their decrepit and crumbling state. Out of the corner of his eye, Kormak even saw one covered with vines that thrashed in the air like-

Kormak spun towards the tower. No thrashing vines, just regular vines. “Did you see what I just saw, Bail?”

“If it was ruins, then yes.”

"You didn't see animate vines trying to pull birds out of the air then?"

Bail's expression answered that question.

Keeper walked up beside them and Kormak glanced at him. “Looking for something? Don't see any discarded metal, if that's what you are looking for.”

As he spoke, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, one of the buildings falling, but skywards. He quickly looked in that direction, but just saw nothing but more ruins. “Tell me someone saw that,” Kormak said.

“Saw what?” Bail said.

“Yes,” Keeper said.

“You saw it too?” Kormak said. “Thought I was going crazy for second.”

“What are you two talking about?” Bail said.

“An anomaly, likely caused by a rift to one of the chaotic outer planar regions, judging by its effect on the ruins.”

“Of course it is. Anything else you want to tell us?” Kormak said.

“The True Stone of Light is two-and-a-half miles that way, where that self-assembling stone pyramid sits north of us,” Keeper said.

Kormak peered into the distance for a few minutes before movements in the ruin caught his attention. “Are those stones migrating?”

As they watched, a massive piece of masonry fell from a nearby building, hit the ground and rolled ten feet. A few seconds later, it rolled a couple more times.

“That was odd,” Kormak said. A second later, the piece of rubble rolled another twenty feet towards the north.

Kormak squinted into the distance and saw the top of a ramshackle terraced pyramid rising from the forested ruins. As he watched, the air seemed to ripple, vertigo and nausea almost overwhelmed him, and a square stone block the size of a wagon rolled up the side of the pyramid and settled atop it.

“The True Stone of Light is in there?” Kormak said, pointing at the bizarre pyramid.

Keeper nodded.

“Any idea what sort of thing might live inside that?”

“The Nexus is silent.”

“Figures.”

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 2


“What do you suppose Suniel is doing right now?” Kormak said as the Skyland came to a halt next to a cliff face where they could easily disembark.

“It can't be much stranger than what we have going on,” Bail said, staring at the strange pyramid. As they watched, another stone rolled up a bit higher, settling precariously on edge.

Harold was thinking more about what sort of creature would live in such a thing. Something powerful enough to take a True Stone for itself and hold on to it.

“Velea, bring the Guardian,” Harold said. He couldn't see Velea anywhere, but that didn't mean she wasn't nearby.

“Velea gets the Guardian?” Bail said, turning on Harold. “Why is that?”

“She may be able to hide, but she tells me combat is not entirely her forte,” Harold said. He shrugged. “Makes sense that she have it since we might be fighting something soon."

“Fine, then Keeper is with us,” Kormak said.

They all turned to Keeper. The construct ignored them and started walking towards the pyramid.

“Do we really want to just leave our Skyland sitting here?” Kormak said.

Bail smiled. “Meepo's got it. Take it away!”

Harold heard a loud yipping from the other side of the Skyland and it began to slowly drift away.

“We're leaving the Skyland in the hands of a kobold?” Harold said, staring at Bail in disbelief.

“He's my brother, I trust him,” Bail said with a shrug.

“Tell me how your brother is a kobold again?” Kormak said.

“Well I don't trust him,” Harold said. “Bring him back here.”

Bail stared at him flatly. “No chance.”

Harold stared at Bail as Velea and the Guardian joined them. They stood in silence for a minute. Harold was waiting for Bail to make the first move, to reach for that huge adamantine sword of his.

Finally Kormak broke the silence. “If you guys are gonna kill each other, just do it. If not, let's go check out that pyramid.”

Harold took a deep breath and Bail bared his teeth in what could have been a smile or a snarl. He waited until Bail walked away to lower his guard. Velea moved forward to the edge of his peripheral vision.

“I've noticed a lot of tension between the two of you,” Velea said. “If I didn't know any better, I would think that you were about to try to kill each other like the dwarf said.”

“He told me a while back that he would kill me as soon as I turned my back on him,” Harold said, watching the dwarf, half-dragon, and construct walk into the ruins of Endemore.

“You think he would?”

“Now that Suniel isn't here? He'd try.”

“Try?”

Harold tapped his quiver. “I already put half-a-dozen arrows into him, I could do it again. Let's go.”

He glanced back at the Skyland now hovering several hundred feet above the ruins and shook his head as he followed the others. Velea followed a few moments later, a troubled expression on her face.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 3

“Anyone else feeling kinda dizzy?” Velea said. “It's like the ground is tilting towards that pyramid... but it isn't.”

“And what is that smell?” Bail said, brows furrowed as he sniffed at the air. He couldn't place it, just a faint, vaguely unpleasant scent.

“Look at this thing!” Kormak shouted from a ways further along the rubble-strewn courtyard around the pyramid.

Bail and the others walked closer, climbing over a mound of rubble to see Kormak staring at a massive cube of stone longer on a side that Bail was tall that stood perfectly still on one edge. He walked around it, giving it wide-berth in case it suddenly decided to fall over.

“Look at this edge. It's sitting on stone, nothing holding it up at all,” Kormak said, kneeling and pointing.

“Move back,” Bail said, walking towards the block and getting a good grip on one edge. After glancing around to see that no one was in its path, he pulled. Nothing. He tried harder, eventually straining with all his might against the stone. Finally he gave up, panting.

“Magic?” Kormak said.

“Not exactly,” Keeper said, examining the pyramid as if he were planning on building one.

“Care to elaborate?”

Keeper nodded. “There are realms where what we consider the... norms of reality are different, or non-existent. A semi-permanent rift or portal to such a place might cause a distortion of defined reality on both planes.”

“Hm. I wonder if there's a side entrance to it somewhere,” Kormak said, turning back to the pyramid.

“Harold seems to be betting that it's at the top,” Bail said, pointing to where Harold and the Guardian – and probably Velea too, though they couldn't see her – were working their way up.

He and Kormak scrambled and climbed after them, catching up just as Harold and the Guardian came to a stop, staring at a massive twenty foot cube of stone at the very top. Keeper was also already there waiting.

Bail and Kormak stared at him in amazement as they gasped for breath. “How did you get up here so fast?”

Keeper turned towards them, eyes flickering. “Your path was not optimal.”

“Do you think the entrance is underneath this last block?” Harold said, circling around so he could see another face of it.

“Maybe we just push it off,” Kormak said, walking towards it. “Keeper said the rules don't apply here, so it kinda makes sense.”

The dwarf stretched and flexed dramatically, then slowly put his hands against it and pushed. His arms sunk in to what appeared to be solid stone up to the elbows. “What the- ow! It burns!”

He jerked his hands back and stepped away as the cube of stone suddenly deformed, pseudopods reaching in all directions. Bail was taken by surprise and one grabbed him before he could get away.

On reflex, his eyes snapped shut as he was enveloped, like being submerged in a vat of caustic honey. He clawed and bit for his life, ignoring the pain as the acids burned at him. Worst of all was the feelings of drowning, suffocation, claustrophobia. He redoubled his efforts, throwing his weight back and forth as he slashed and tore, attempting to find a way out.

Then he felt a jolt of energy, and another. Lightning shot into him through the substance of the thing that had taken him, causing his muscles to spasm. When he recovered, he felt air on one elbow and hurled himself in that direction, clawing his way free and gasping for breath.

He landed hard on the stone and rolled several tiers down before he could catch himself.

When he looked up, Kormak, Velea, and Harold were all holding onto the True Stone of Lightning, flashes and bolts arcing from their extended hands into the rapidly dissolving substance of the creature. By the time Bail had climbed again to their side, the thing had lost all form and was dribbling down the sides of the pyramid and into cracks, filling the air with the acrid stench of its inner acids.

“You ok?” Kormak said, turning to Bail. "That didn't look especially fun."

Bail took a moment to check himself over. “My scales are tarnished and it ate my new armor off my back, but I seem to be relatively unhurt.”

“Well, the good news is that we found the door,” Kormak said, pointing to the flattened top of the pyramid where the creature had been. An uneven, patchwork staircase spiraled down into the stony depths.

Bail grunted. “And what's the bad news.”

The pyramid itself answered a second later.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 4

There was a sudden pulse of energy – not visible in the air, but felt in the bones – that rippled through them. A second later, all the stones of the pyramid shifted at once, sending Kormak and the others scrambling and tumbling. The opening of the crude spiral stair that led into the depths of the pyramid violently crushed closed. The pyramid ceased to be a pyramid and became merely a heap of rubble, with Kormak and the others trying to stay on the top of it as the rubble composing it rolled, cracked, rumbled, and churned.

As quickly as it had started, it stopped. There was a moment of stillness, then the rubble began to shift outward and reform into the rough pyramid, the spiral staircase boring itself out again into the depths of the rubble. Thirty seconds later, it was as though nothing had ever happened.

“Why am I not excited about going in there now?” Kormak said, pointing at the hole.

Bail was sniffing the air and looking around. “Surprising there isn't any dust in the air after all that.”

“We just landed our flying island in a ruined city where stones fall sideways and up, build themselves spontaneously into pyramids, and you think the dust is strange?” Kormak said, staring at the half-dragon.

Keeper shook his head. “No, he stated that he found the lack of dust strange.”

Kormak turned to the construct. “Thanks for the clarification. You sure the True Stone is down there?”

Keeper nodded.

“Figures – hey, wait, you're going in now?” Kormak said, stepping in front of Harold.

Harold nodded. “How deep can it be? This pyramid isn't that tall.”

“But... but... did you not see what it just did?”

“Perhaps it was an anomaly,” Keeper said.

“Of course it was! Unless rock does stuff like this at the Nexus or wherever you're from.”

“No. For clarification of the previous statement, perhaps in the altered reality of our current locality, the event we just witnesses was not a regular event.”

“And if it was?”

“Then we'll move quickly,” Harold said, pushing past the dwarf and descending into the hole. Velea presumably followed since the Guardian hunched itself down and followed a bit behind Harold.

Kormak stared at Bail. “You're not going in there are you?”

Keeper followed the Guardian.

Bail shrugged. “The True Stone is down there, it seems we have no alternative.”

“But... but... what if... the rocks!” Kormak yelled at Bails back as he followed the others.

Kormak crossed his arms and planted his feet. “Well, I'm definitely not going down there. No way.”

Out of the corner of his eye, a ruined building began shimmering and moving slowly towards the pyramid. His head snapped around.

There was no shimmering and the building wasn't moving, but Kormak couldn't be sure that it wasn't closer to the pyramid than it was before. The feeling of vertigo began to come over him again. “Bugger.”

He walked to the steps and descended quickly into the claustrophobic darkness of the pyramid.

***

They had been descending into the pyramid for several minutes when the nauseating energy pulse hit again. Bail snorted and braced himself against the walls, and not a moment to soon. The stone began closing in, pressing hard on him from all directions. He grunted and strained with all his might, the primal spark of terror at being crushed and buried beneath in the dark depths of the earth filling him with adrenaline. He gritted his teeth, joints popping, bones grinding against the pressing rubble. He let out a roar as his muscles reached the point of utter failure, his body straining beyond its limits. Just when he didn't think he could take it anymore, there was a rumble somewhere deep below him and the pressure released and he fell to the rapidly forming stairs.

He lay gasping for several minutes, similar sounds from above and below letting him know some of his companions, at least, were still alive. “Hello?” he called, once he could catch his breath enough to do so.

He stood slowly, his whole body hurting at once.

“Told you so!” a dwarven voice grumbled from above.

“Everyone alive?” Harold called from below, his voice muffled by the stone.

“Mostly,” Velea said, the pain obvious in her tone.

“Keeper?” Bail said. He stared at the darkness. “Damnit, can we get some light in here?”

A moment later, Velea joined him, a faintly glowing white stone held in her hand. They went up a few stairs and met Kormak coming the other way, dragging the crumpled form of Keeper behind him. “Gimme a hand, he's heavier than he looks,” Kormak said. “And boy, Suniel is going to be pissed when he shows up again.”

“If he ever shows up again,” Harold said from below.

“I'll take him back up,” Bail said, stepping past Kormak and heaving the impressive weight of the construct onto his shoulder. He ignored the complaints of the others and practically sprinted up the stairs, the strain of having been recently crushed and sprinting up a narrow, uneven staircase through the dark with two-hundred pounds of inert metal on his back driving him to the brink of passing out.

He reached the daylight and literally fell out onto the top of the pyramid, gasping. When he recovered enough to move, he crossed Keeper's mangled arms across his chest in the universal sign of funerary repose and glanced back at the hole in the pyramid with a sigh.

A few deep breaths later and he was heading down again. He hadn't made it far when another pulse rumbled in his bones. Not again! he though as he turned and half-scrambled, half-sprinted back up the few flights of stairs he had made it down. He leapt clear just as the stairway closed behind him, the stones pressing together like the door to a tomb.

He lifted up Keeper to hopefully keep the construct from getting buried in the shifting stones and struggled to keep his balance. It was less than a minute before the stones were again inert, but it had felt like hours when he had been inside the pyramid... as his companions were now. He scrambled, slid, and jumped down the side of the pyramid, laying Keeper down on a stretch of clear ground where they could hopefully find him again and then ascended the pyramid again.

When he reached the summit, he gave himself no time to hesitate, practically leaping down the stairs. If anyone is alive, we'll need to get moving quickly to get to the Stone down there, he thought. If not, then I need to get what's left of them out...

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 5

Harold cursed as the crushing rock pulled back again. “Everyone still alive?” he gasped.

“Yes,” Velea said weakly from nearby.

“Barely,” Kormak said. “How about we not wait for Bail and head down now?”

Harold didn't say anything, just began moving down the stairs as quickly as he could in the narrow confines. He heard the others coming down close behind him. Several minutes later, he saw light ahead, and motioned for Velea to stop.

They proceeded slowly, moving onwards until the tunnel was as bright as day. Ahead, Harold saw the stairs end in a hole, shining with light as though it opened to the noon-day sun. “I think we're there,” Harold whispered.

“We're where?” Kormak said loudly.

“Shhh!” Harold said.

“Don't shush me. I just got smashed by a pyramid twice. I'm in no mood for-” Harold squeezed past Velea and the Guardian and grabbed Kormak's collar. The dwarf immediately, twisted out of his grip and pushed him back, but he shut up.

“We're at the bottom, there might be something down there,” Harold said, glaring at the dwarf.

“Well, why didn't you say so?” Kormak said, straightening his clothes.

Harold returned to the hole and was about to peek in when Bail's voice boomed out. “Glad to see you are all alive, thought I might have-”

Behind him, someone quieted Bail.

“-thought I might have to drag more of you out,” Bail finished at a whisper.

Harold turned to Velea. “You have some fortifying magics, don't you?”

She nodded. “I can help with some of the injuries anyone took when the stairwell closed on us.”

“Do it then.”

Velea began quietly chanting, then lightly touched Harold, Kormak, and Bail in turn. Harold wasn't sure exactly what she did, but the pain and abrasions of the crushing stone faded slightly.

She had just finished when a refined, eloquent sounding voice called out from below.

“You there, healing yourselves in my stairwell...”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Harold sighed and leaned out into the hole. He leaned back and sighed. “It's a round room with a beholder in the center of it.” He looked in again, then turned to the others, his brows furrowed. “Strangely, it looks like there's a pile of gold on the ceiling...”

***

Abrogosian stared at the newcomers as they crawled out of the gravity-flux stairwell. He wondered how long it would take these ones to figure out how the spherical rift distortion affected gravity in the chamber.

He wasn't surprised when they figured out that the entirety of the spherical chamber wall was “floor”, climbing out of the hole and walking around. Considering they had survived two “experiences” with the gravity-flux, he wasn't especially surprised. Now what did surprise him was that one of them, a humanoid with a variety of magically-imbued equipment including a quiver that opened into a small extra-dimensional pocket, was carrying what seemed to be the True Stone of Lightning.

“I only see three of you... four counting your silversteel Elarim guardian-golem. Where's the other one I heard?”

They glanced amongst themselves, then one, a the half-dragon off-breed of a gold dragon, it appeared, looked at him and said, “there were only the three of us, you must be mistaken.”

Abrogosian paused and thought for a moment. They seemed to have noticed the magic-damping affects of his primary eye, and were spreading out around the room so he could only have one in view of it at a time. He made sure to have at least two eye-stalks following each of them. “Do you know what I am?”

“A beholder, a creature made from the chaotic energies beyond the stars mixing with the stuff of reality,” the female said. “Yes, I know you.”

“Ah, excellent. It is good to be known, yes?”

The humanoids exchanged glances that he assumed conveyed confusion. Excellent, he thought. With creatures of this power, I must be careful. If they had enough power to claim one True Stone...

He often counted the time between gravity-fluxes in one part of his mind, and now one was nearly there.

“Hm. Wait for it... wait for it...”

They stared at him, then looked at each other in confusion, then the pulse of a gravity-flux hit and the stairwell ground closed.

By the way all three of the humanoids' attention shot to the stairwell, he knew he was right about his count. “Oh, was someone still in there?” he said, turning from side to side to imitate the motion he'd seen other humanoids make with their heads. “It does that. Now, if you had told me you had another guest that was shy and still hiding in the stairwell, I could have warned you it was about to close again. Most unfortunate.”

A minute later, the stairwell re-sorted itself and their was a pained groan from the stairs. “Come on in, friend,” he called, giving his finest toothy grin. “I assure you, it's much nicer in here than it is in there.”

Crushed two, three times and still alive? These creatures are powerful indeed. Must float carefully...

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 6

“So... what is that place out there? You know, the ruined one outside?” Kormak said.

Bail winced, expecting the beholder to attack at any moment. He'd heard of these things from his mother when he was very young. 'Powerful, treacherous, cunning,' she had said. And this one has a True Stone. We have to be careful here...

“Out there? It was some empire that existed here before they opened up the portal.”

“Portal?”

The room shook, stone ground on stone, and one small section of the room slid aside, revealing a shimmering gray-green portal. Just looking at it made Bail feel sick, like the room was spinning and stretching, like gravity was constantly shifting.

“Through the portal is where we came to your plane. There is an amazing realm on the other side that you might enjoy visiting. Might want to leave your-”

“Wait, hold on toothy. What about this place outside, this empire. What happened to it?” Kormak said.

“Well, it seems awfully destroyed lately. How was it when you came through?”

“Uh... destroyed?”

“It hasn't changed since last time I was there then.” The thing grinned and Bail wondered what it was up to. He exchanged worried glances with Velea, then Harold. From the archer's expression, for once they agreed about something. Bail stared at two eye-stalks that were watching him and walked slowly towards the archer.

“So, did you destroy it?” Kormak said.

Bail leaned close to Harold and whispered. “With that thing floating there in the center of the room, you're the only one who can reach it.”

“Well, I can't claim sole responsibility for the destruction of an empire,” Abrogosian said. “Though the thought is sure flattering to the ego.”

“What about the True Stone?” Harold whispered back. “Its magics...?”

“What's an ego? No, wait, I don't care. So, you're saying that the ruins out there were somehow caused by you?”

Bail shrugged. “I'm assuming you know about or noticed the effects it has one whatever it looks at? I don't know if the True Stone will work.”

“Yes, well, no, not directly. It's a long story. I am responsible for the pyramid though, you like it?”

“So you take our True Stone then?” Harold whispered back.

“Like the pyramid? No, I don't like it much honestly. It smushed me one too many times. No offense.”

“Yeah, we'll distract it, you kill it,” Bail whispered back.

Abrogosian turned his main eye towards them. “It's good form to talk about your plans to kill something somewhere where it can't see and hear you, just so you know.”

Bail froze, ready for combat. There was a long, tense pause. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. “So, why don't you just kill us?”

It blinked its massive center eye at him a few times, then smiled. “Guess.”

Bail stared at it for a minute, then whispered to Harold. “See if you can get Velea to distract it somehow, I might have an idea.” He turned to the beholder. “Um... can I get a hint?”

“Of course,” Abrogosian said, a set of eyestalks following Harold as he walked over to Velea. Bail happened to glance at the portal again as Harold walked near it. Even looking at it gave Bail a headache. “Ok, my first hint is... artifacts!”

“Artifacts.”

“Yes, artifacts. Go ahead and guess.”

Bail saw Harold whispering to Velea. “So... you aren't attacking us because of artifacts.”

“That's a just a hint, no need to parrot it back to me as if it were the answer. Use that draconic brain of yours, see what you can come up with.”

“Uh... I think I need another hint.”

“Numerology,” it said, without a second's hesitation.

“Numerology?”

“See, there's that parroting thing again. I must say, gold dragons aren't doing nearly as good a job raising their offspring as they used to.”

“I was raised by kobolds.”

“Ah, well that explains a lot then.”

Suddenly Velea burst out into song, her voice ringing even in the strange acoustics of the spherical stone chamber. Bail's eyes widened and he was caught up in the song along with the beholder for a second before he noticed Harold waving at him and nodding his head towards the exit.

He walked over to Kormak and motioned for the dwarf to head towards the exit and was nearly there with Harold when Velea's song ended. Abrogosian turned towards them immediately and they stopped in their tracks, again ready to fight.

“I say, if you are going out, could you take this litter with you?”

They stared at the beholder uncomprehendingly.

“Litter?” Kormak finally said.

One eyestalk motioned towards the heap of gold on the far side of the chamber. “Yes, this stuff has slowly accumulated over the years and it's honestly a bit of an eye-sore. Could you dispose of it for me?”

The three of them exchanged a confused glance, then quickly complied. “Would you like another song?” Harold said, as they started to bag up coins and stack chests.

“Yes please, it is most delightful.”

Bail had been in many surreal situations in his life, but nothing up to that point compared to hauling sacks of beholder-given gold away from said beholder through a hole in the floor that sent them falling upwards onto the stairs of a self-building pyramid while a shadow-walking woman with a regenerating silver golem stood next to a portal to a different dimension and sang the most beautiful music he'd ever heard as the beholder hummed along.

Kormak summed it up for him as they hoofed it quickly up the stairs. “That was different.”

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 7

Bail waved at the Skyland, hoping Meepo was paying attention. He was just about to give up when the Skyland began to drop, drifting towards the cliff on which they stood. Bail, Kormak, and Harold jogged towards the cliff edge, but slowed as they got closer.

The Skyland wasn't stopping.

“Uh... run!” Kormak shouted as the Skyland came piling into the cliff, the ground heaving and cracking, rocks and dust flying and swirling in all directions.

When it all cleared, the Skyland was securely piled into the rock.

“Not exactly as planned,” Harold said.

“But you know, it just might work,” Bail said. “This way we don't have to find a place to land the thing.”

“Right, so what's the plan again?” Kormak said as they jumped across the broken rubble where Skyland met cliff. Meepo came bouncing down from the henge.

“I do good Bail?”

Bail nodded and patted the kobold on the head. “Good Meepo, just might want to go a bit more slowly when you're bringing it in next time.”

“Meepo will do!”

“Ahem,” Kormak said, waving his arms in front of Bail. “What are we doing?”

“You two are getting the True Stone of Air, then using it to summon spirits of air to go fight that thing,” Harold said.

“We are?” Kormak said.

“Do you not remember how?” Harold said.

“Of course we remember how,” Bail said with a growl. “What do you mean you two? What are you doing? Where are you going?”

They stared as Harold ran back towards the pyramid.

“Or, you know, whatever,” Kormak said to Harold's back. He turned to Bail. “So, do you know how to do that summoning stuff he mentioned?”

“Yeah, but let's get this 'litter' stored somewhere first.”

“Let's just stack it near the henge since that's where we're going anyway.”

A few minutes later they stood staring at the henge and the True Stone floating on the pedestal in the center of it.

“So, do you think Meepo plowed this thing far enough into the cliff face that it won't fall if we take the True Stone?” Kormak said.

“Guess there's only one way to find out,” Bail said, taking the True Stone. Immediately, the faint glow inside the crystal of the henge dimmed and the Skyland lurched. They stood for a second, arms out, balancing and waiting for it to shift more, but it seemed to have settled.

“All right, let's get off the Skyland in case it falls before we start this,” Kormak said.

Bail nodded.

Ten minutes later, with half-a-dozen air spirits swirling about them, the ground suddenly shook. They stopped chanting and stared at the pyramid, to see the ground heave and visibly ripple out from it, stones raining down, ruins toppling, and cracks forming in the ground.

“What was that?” Kormak said. “More importantly, what did Harold just do?”

Bail just growled and stared at the pyramid. A few minutes later, it compressed in violently, held for a second, then exploded apart, massive stones flying in every direction and another rippling shock wave traveling through the earth.

A second later, they saw a tiny figure pull himself out of the top of the shattered pyramid, a brilliantly shining object in hand. The figure half-ran, half-slid down what was left of the pyramid as it came apart.

“Run!” Harold shouted, his face clearly covered with blood and dust even from a distance.

Dwarf and half-dragon exchanged a glance, then complied, sprinting for the Skyland. The Skyland was falling out of the cliff face in terrifying lurches as they scrambled across it towards the henge.

“What going on?” Meepo wailed as he scampered after them.

Bail ignored him, thrusting the True Stone onto the central pedestal of the henge. As soon as the henge began to glow, he grabbed the Stone. Fly up, fast! he mentally commanded.

The Skyland complied immediately, drifting upwards and away.

A few seconds later, Harold reached the henge and doubled over, breathing heavily, the True Stone of Light clutched tightly in one hand.

“Where's Velea and the guardian?” Bail said.

Harold shook his head and opened his mouth to speak.

The sky began to fill with light.

Bail glanced back towards the pyramid and saw the ground heave upward.

On instinct, he grabbed the True Stone of Air again and tilted the Skyland so the bulk of its mass was between them and the pyramid. A second later, the world turned white. The crystals of the henge flared blue in response, a crystalline ringing from the henge warring with a tremendous, deafening roar from all around them.

The Skyland lurched, the thundering crack of stone breaking and shattering joining the ring and roar that filled the air.

Then in a flash, the whiteness intensified, until there was naught but light and energy...

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 8

Kormak hurt everywhere. As he came to, that was his first realization. His second was that he was half-buried in rubble. He coughed and opened his eyes and saw only smoke and dust. As he pulled himself out of the rocky debris, he tried to remember where he was and what had happened.

We flying over a ruined city that wasn't quite right... Endemore? he thought, blinking rapidly and spitting black phlegm to clear the grit from his eyes and lungs. Oh wait, yeah, the pyramid... talkative beholder... the Skyland!

Visibility was at ten, maybe fifteen feet, though he could see the distant glow of what was probably a massive fire through the smoke and dust. Where is the Skyland? We were on it when... when this happened.

“Bail, you alive?” he shouted before breaking down into a fit of coughing. He dug into his pack for a bit of cloth to make a mask, tied it on, and walked onwards. “Bail? Harold?”

A faint breeze picked up, causing even more grit to blow and sending the smoke and dust swirling into his face. “Harold? Bail?”

It could have been minutes or hours of stumbling through the hazy, burning twilight world he'd woken into when the air began to clear slightly and he heard a voice in the distance. “Kormak, is that you?”

“Bail?” He squinted at a figure emerging from the haze a dozen yards away. “Bail! Never thought I'd be so happy to see an ugly half-dragon like you!”

Bail smiled. “Ugly? Who are you to call anything ugly, dwarf?”

“True I suppose,” Kormak said, assuming a humble pose. “The gods felt bad about making one being so perfect, so they had to tweak something to keep everyone else from getting jealous.”

“I think they overdid it,” Bail said. “Seen Harold?”

They covered their eyes as even stronger gusts began to blow. “Let's find some shelter until this all blows over,” Kormak said, leading towards a large chunk of rock jutting up from the debris.

When they got close, Kormak thought he saw a faint blue glow coming from the other side of the rock and slowed down as they neared it. He pointed and Bail squinted at it for a moment. “The henge?”

“Wasn't the henge on a Skyland?” Kormak said as they walked closer.

“I think that boulder there is the Skyland now,” Bail replied.

When they finished circling around, they saw that the Skyland was, in fact, now a disc of rock perhaps fifteen feet across and about half that thick. The pale blue crystals of the henge seemed to be entirely intact and stuck out at an odd angle from the half-buried sky-disk.

Harold stood before it and glanced in their direction. “It seems to be functional, though it might be best if we dug it out before we tried flying it anywhere.”

“Nice to see you are alive, too,” Kormak said, shaking his head. “I don't suppose you're going to tell us what the hell happened?”

Harold shook his head as he continued to stare at the henge. “Not now, time later.”

Kormak sighed looked around the still-hazy rubble-field and was struck by a random thought. “Where do you suppose the turtle is?”

Bail and Harold stared at him. “You know, I wasn't even thinking about it,” Bail said. “Was it still attached after Meepo crashed the Skyland into the cliff?”

Kormak shrugged. “I didn't think to check. I suppose we should find that cliff we crashed into then.”

“We dig this out first,” Harold said, kneeling, digging with his hands and tossing small rocks over his shoulders.

Bail snorted and glared at the human. “I'm going to look for the turtle,” Bail said. The half-dragon wheeled and walked off into the rapidly-clearing haze.

He glanced back and forth between the half-dragon and human, then sighed. “Good thing Dog is in Suniel's Coachhouse at least.”

A quick scan of the area revealed a nearby massive, craggy heap of rock – probably a chunk of the Skyland that had been blown off. He jogged towards it and began climbing.

By the time he reached the top, the sun was setting and the wind had dispersed most of the dust. The sight he saw was terrible and wondrous all at once.

“Gods,” he said, plopping down on an outcropping and dangling his legs.

Where the pyramid had been, there was only a crater, probably several miles across and hundreds of feet deep. Around its edges were large heaps of rock and ruin, like the one he had just climbed, forming a jagged cliff around the rim of the crater. The surrounding hills bore naught but flattened trees and fire and hundreds of smaller fires smoldered here and there in the crater itself, giving the impression of some simmering hell. In the center, the rock was glassy and smooth and here and there still glowed red.

And near that center was a tiny figure, staggering and stumbling as it made its way in Kormak's direction. He watched it for several minutes, catching the faintest hints of black robes and the occasional strange glint of light from where it clutched something in its hand. Something about the figure triggered a vague familiarity and as it continued to stumble in his direction the feeling grew stronger.

Though it was still a mile or more away, the figure looked up, straight at Kormak's crag-top. Somehow Kormak instantly knew who it was, despite the distance.

“Not possible.” Kormak blinked repeatedly, still staring. “How in the hells...?”

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 29, Part 9

<I am return!>

Bail heaved another boulder out of the way and stopped, panting. Meepo struggled with a rock the size of Bail's head, dropped it onto the pile they'd been making, and fell over.

“Doing all right there Meepo?” Bail said.

“Hard... work...” the kobold panted.

Bail looked down into the hole they'd made stone by stone. “We're almost to the head,” Bail said. “A couple more rocks and we might be able to fit you in there.”

“Enough rest then, let's get those last rocks!” Meepo said, springing up and pulling away a few more stones. A few minutes later Meepo was crawling through the turtle's partially open mouth. Bail backed away as the half-buried turtle slowly backed out of the rubble.

When it came to a stop, Bail walked a lap around it. The mouth opened when he got to the front and Meepo leaned out. “It intact?”

Bail nodded as he ducked into the mouth and headed in. “I guess this silversteel is as unbreakable as they say. Not a scratch.”

He looked out the turtle's eyes. “Turtle head to... that henge floating over there. I guess Harold got the henge working.”

***

Harold touched the True Stone in the center of the henge and lowered it back to the ground as the Turtle approached. He set the disc of the Skyland's new, drastically diminished bulk onto the ground and stepped off.

“I see you got what's left of the Skyland dug out,” Bail said.

“Yes. I'm thinking we should take it to the Black City.”

“Take the what to the what?” Bail said, staring at Harold.

Harold sighed. “To see if the Black City might serve as an ally against Thessalock.”

“To see if... an ally... against Thessalock? Did you forget about Iron Sky? About the fact that in a month or two they're going to destroy everything here?”

“Did you forget that Thessalock is destroying the Ashen Towers right now?” Harold shouted back. “If I don't do something, the Crystal Towers will fall!”

“So what?” Bail shouted back. “You think the Crystal Towers matters now, with Iron Sky literally looming right over our heads?”

Bail and Harold stood only feet apart, glaring at each other, hands on weapons. Let's end this, Harold thought.

“Looks like I not much changed while I was gone,” a familiar voice said softly behind them.

They turned to see Kormak standing with a figure in a black robe laced through with faintly shimmering runes. As the figure pulled back the cowl, Harold saw that it was Suniel, but a Suniel changed. His skin was darker, his features seemingly more angular and his eyes had a strange glint, as if they glowed faintly from within. The elf cradled the stump of his left hand in the crook of his right, while he clutched something that flickered and shone like living flame in his other.

There was a moment of silence as Suniel looked between them with his usual faint smile. Then Suniel looked around. “Where's Keeper and Velea?”

Bail turned to Harold and glared, Kormak coughed, looked down, and shifted his weight.

It was Meepo who answered, beaming with a helpful koboldish smile. “I think most of him is in a chest inside. Tough to say now since all the chests are broken from when we dropped, blew up, and buried the Turtle. Bail says Velea is lost somewhere in another evil world or something with the silver statue thingy, well, if she survived everything going KABOOM that is.”

Suniel looked slowly between them, his smile fading. Finally he shook his head, sighed, and walked past them.

 

[Funeris]

This is a pretty good read, Iron Sky. Can't wait to see where the story twists next.

~Fune