Travels through the Wild West: Books V-VIII (Epilogue)

[Lazybones]

Slow day at work (bosses all on vacation), so it's update time...

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Book V, Part 20

The chasm opened up like a great wound in the body of the earth, running for miles through the interior of the world. Gusts of wind, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, tore through the great open space, bringing strange smells from other places far away through the endless network of cracks and passages that lay under the surface of Toril.

The width of the chasm varied along its great length, but at one point the gap between its two vertical sides narrowed to perhaps two hundred paces. At that point, a massive stone bridge arced across the distance, connecting two passages that were part of the endless network of tunnels that wound through the twisting Underdark.

The bridge itself looked natural, tenuous in the vastness of the chasm even though it was sound, thick, and solid when viewed up close. However, one glance was enough to tell that even if the bridge was an ordinary construct formed of the interaction of stone and wind and water over centuries or millennia, intelligent hands had come along more recently and bent the structure to their use.

One of the passages exiting from the bridge was plain and unmarked, just another of the thousands of natural corridors that led off into the Underdark. But on the opposite end of the bridge, the passage exit was sealed by a pair of large metal doors. The shiny outer face of the portals glowed with the reflected light of a large bluish-green flame that burned in a brazier sunk into a hollow in one of the adjacent walls. That eerie flame—which never seemed to flicker in the wind or grow dim from lack of fuel—revealed that each door had within its center a narrow vertical slit, clearly designed to allow defenders beyond to view intruders approaching along the length of the bridge. Every now and again a shadow moved behind those slits, indicating that the portals were indeed warded by alert guardians.

But the great metal doors were only part of the visible defenses of this place. Above the portals, a thick stony overhang jutted out partly over the length of the stone bridge. Atop this shelf, some thirty feet above the surface of the span, was a battlement of worn stone, carefully carved to lend defenders there excellent cover from attacks from below without injuring their vantage over the length of the bridge. Although there was no light upon the shelf, those with the eyes to penetrate the darkness would see squat forms standing sentry atop those battlements, moving occasionally behind the warding stone crenellations.

It was a considerable defensive position, and one that had served the duergar quite well.

Moving carefully and slowly so as not to betray his position to a keen-eyed sentry, Benzan slipped back from his vantage point among a cluster of boulders near the mouth of the passage overlooking the bridge. He’d spent the last ten minutes or so watching silently, trying to discern every last possible detail that he could make out about the duergar fortifications.

From what he’d seen, it didn’t look good.

Unwilling to trust fully the power of his ring of shadows to conceal him, he didn’t rise from his crawl until he was well back into the shelter of the passage. He passed a thick, furry form as he retreated, but Taktak was his equal in stealth as the burly quaggoth warrior slipped away in his wake. Benzan had to admit, that while most of the quaggoth seemed to lack the grace of subtlety, preferring a more direct approach to problems, the quaggoth leader had proven both adaptable and skilled. And the best part, at least from Benzan’s perspective, was that he kept the rest of the quaggoths under control. Cal seemed to have established a good relationship with the creatures, and Dana had that one… Rakkath… under her thumb, but the tiefling was still suspicious of the deep bears and their motives, and he wasn’t going to ignore the probing looks that the warriors shot at them when they thought that the companions weren’t paying attention.

But one of the hard lessons that Benzan had learned from life, was that you always paid attention.

The two scouts returned back about fifty paces down the passage, after a bend that took them out of the line of sight of the guardians of the bridge. The others were waiting in a small alcove that led back off the main corridor, the quaggoths forming a small separate knot that seemed to stir to life with the loping return of their leader.

“It doesn’t look good,” Benzan told them, when he was close enough not to have to raise his voice. He quickly filled them in on the details of what he’d seen. “They’ve got a regular fortress up there, easily defended even by a handful of guards. It’s a good thing we’ve got your gnomish ears… if we’d gone any further down the passage, they would have seen Dana’s light for sure.”

“With the noise that wind was making, I’d have to be deaf not to hear it,” Cal replied. A short distance to the side, Taktak was relating the news to his comrades in his own way, and to their surprise the whole lot of them suddenly got up and started in the direction of the bridge.

“What—what are you doing?” Cal asked in surprise. With a quickness that belied his small size, he darted ahead before the quaggoths could pick up speed and outdistance them. “Wait!” he hissed, careful not to let his voice raise too high in volume.

“Danged things are set on suicide, it looks like,” Benzan said in an aside to Dana. The mystic wanderer, a troubled look on her face, did not respond. Behind her, Rakkath stood, conspicuous in not having joined the others.

One of the quaggoth warriors looked down at Cal, and growled something unintelligible that was decidedly hostile in tone. The gnome, however, ignored him, and drifted into the melody of his tongues spell.

The quaggoths had come to realized what the song signified, and while their impatience was clearly reflected in their eyes they waited the few moments for the spell to take effect.

“Well?” Taktak finally asked, the meaning in the growl coming through clearly through the filter of Cal’s spell. “No more waiting. We must attack swiftly, and break through doors before they can respond.”

“Sounds like a great plan,” Benzan opined from the side, but no one was really listening to him.

“Great warriors,” Cal began, “We do not doubt your courage, but the shadow dwarves are clearly prepared for such an attack. You might break through the doors, and kill many, but you would lose many warriors in the process.” He saw immediately in their eyes how little the quaggoths cared of that notion, so before any could respond he hastily added, “Let us use our cunning to devise a plan to break through the enemy defenses, so that your strength is not used in vain.”

While the quaggoth language was less complex than that which Cal was using, apparently the spell got the meaning through, for after a moment’s thought Taktak nodded. Several of the quaggoths behind him seemed reluctant, and one even shot a dark look at the gnome, but all eventually stepped back behind the bulky form of their leader.

“So, what’s the plan, O fearless leader?” Benzan asked.

Cal glanced once more at the quaggoths, knowing that their impatience for battle could end their reprieve at any moment. With a conspiratorial look at his companions, he quickly laid out the idea that had been forming in his mind ever since Benzan had returned with his description of the duergar fortifications.

 

[Maldur]

back to the top!

 

[Horacio]

Cal for president

 

[Lazybones]

Book V, Part 21

“It’s done. Go,” Cal said, drawing back from Lok.

Dana nodded, and opened her mind for a fourth time to the power of her goddess. Behind her, the quaggoths watched with a mixture of unease and suspicion, wary of all magic due to their species’ misfortunes at the hands of the potent magic-using races of the Underdark.

Benzan, of course, was already on his way.

As Dana completed her spell, Cal’s plan moved into action.

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The six duergar serving guard duty atop the battlements that warded the entrance to their stronghold held mixed feelings about their current task. On the one hand, such duty was boring, tedious, and repetitive, and despite being rotated more or less evenly among the garrison’s warriors, it was generally considered a punishment for some real or imagined offense. But at the same time, all of the dwarf warriors had heard rumors of the strange happenings of late in the inner caverns that were Shemma’s private demesne, and by and large most of them were quite happy to be as far away from that place as was reasonably possible.

So the six stood their posts, occasionally walking along the smooth teeth of the battlements, neither engaging in petty chatter nor idle amusements, infused with a perpetual wariness that no surfaceworlder could ever truly understand.

One of the dwarves shifted slightly, feeling an uncomfortable twinge in his lower back at the unexpected movement. He turned, his senses warning him of a danger that he could not consciously see…

One of the dwarves opposite him also stiffened suddenly, but the cause for his distress was immediately apparent as a long, bloody gash suddenly appeared along the line of his throat, tearing through the chain links of his gorget. The dwarf staggered and fell hard against the nearest battlement, trying with futility to stop the flow of its lifeblood between its fingers.

A tall human clad in a full coat of shining mithral armor appeared out of thin air, still hovering slightly with the effects of a spell of flying. He bore a bronze blade wet with the blood of the dwarf he had just slain, and even as the duergar spun and reached for their weapons he lunged at the next nearest defender, thrusting through his defenses and stabbing the tip of his blade through the dwarf’s layered steel armor. The wound was serious if not life-threatening, but the dwarf refused to back off, drawing out a heavy axe with one hand and a long dirk from his belt with the other.

The intruder had gotten surprise, but now five fully armed and armored dwarf warriors bore down on him, moving with the agility and efficiency of men trained to attack in groups. However, before they could manage more than a few desultory, testing probes with their weapons, a shimmering plane of force appeared in the air a few paces away, broadening in size until it formed a portal that hovered a few inches above the stone floor of the battlement.

“Teleportation!” one of the dwarves warned, as several shifted toward this new threat. Even as they did, however, another pair of intruders stepped through the magic gateway—a young human woman clutching a spear, and a broad-shouldered dwarf in full plate armor with a heavy battleaxe.

The duergar, used to the terrible dangers of the Underdark, did not falter in the face of these adversaries or the loss of one of their number, and launched an immediate attack. They coordinated their attacks with subtle gestures, moving to flank their opponents while one broke for the dark opening in the cliff wall at the back of the shelf, retreating to alert the lair and bring aid to repel these bold intruders.

Two came at the man in the mithral armor, spreading out to flank him as their blades sought holes in his defenses. He moved with incredible quickness, although the dwarves could not know of the cat’s grace that Cal had laid upon him, and the strokes that did get through his dodges glanced off of the mithral links of his chainmail.

He might have taken advantage of this to put down his already wounded adversary, but he saw that his companions were not in a position to stop the dwarf running toward the rear exit. Instantly he shot up into the air, taking an attack of opportunity from one of the dwarves that tore a jagged line of pain along his right hip as he disengaged from his foes and shot toward the exit. His magical flight greatly outpaced the speed of the armored dwarf, and as he landed in front of the dark opening, blocking the exit, the dwarf came up short, raising his axe to defend himself.

The other pair of warriors took on the two newcomers. The woman seemed a bit disoriented at having come through the portal, but as the dwarf’s axe slashed at her the blade was turned by an invisible field of magical deflection. The dwarf snarled as he recognized the nature of the silver bracers the woman wore, but he pressed his attack before she could recover and strike back.

Unfortunately for him she recovered quite quickly, darting back with a sudden hop and bringing her spear to bear. With the strength of Selûne’s divine power behind the thrust, she slammed the magical head of the shockspear into the dwarf’s torso, drawing a grunt of pain from him as the blade released its energy into his body.

Lok, meanwhile, faced off against the last warrior.

For about six seconds.

Enhanced by the final spell that Cal had cast before launching the plan into action, Lok spun from his fallen foe and, driven by magical haste, charged into the pair that Benzan had left unfinished. The wounded dwarf spun to meet the charge, only to crumple under the powerful stroke of Lok’s axe.

The duergar did not speak in challenge, or cry out for mercy. They did not call out to their companions below; the loud clang of metal on metal was warning cry enough. They did die, however, fighting against superior adversaries with the same grim fortitude that marked the lives of their more virtuous cousins that dwelled closer to the surface.

After only a few more exchanges, the last of the dwarves were down, and the floor of the battlements were slick with spilled blood. Other than the gash Benzan had taken to his hip, the companions had not taken any injuries in the brief melee.

Dana glanced out over the edge between a gap in the battlements, and saw the quaggoths already coming across the bridge. Cal had remained with them, to ensure that they held back until the attack was underway, and they could move into position to open the iron doors from within. All had suspected, however, that whatever the restraint that the quaggoths could muster would shatter once they heard the sounds of battle. And so it was. At least they were bringing Cal along, one of them—it looked like Rakkath—carrying the gnome aloft on its shoulders. In the light of the blue flame before the doors, the charging creatures looked like grim shadows of death, come to deliver justice to those who committed great wrongs.

Getting a little melodramatic, Dana? she berated herself silently, as she turned to her companions. “They’re coming—” she began.

Only to see that Benzan and Lok had already entered the dark entrance at the rear of the overhang. Even as she took her first step she could hear the crash of a loud gong echoing from somewhere beyond the doors below, followed almost immediately by the sounds of battle.

Sighing to herself, she hurried after them.

 

[Broccli_Head]

It's been awhile...

Delem's dead! I am so far behind! I guess I got side-tracked shortly after the heroes returned from the Isle of Dread.

I guess that was the beginning of Book iv? The last time I remember was the peryton fight and the dwarf and elf NPCs at the campfire.

Guess I'll have to do a lot of reading!

 

[Lazybones]

Broc, the complete story (including all of book IV) is available on Morrus's story hour hosting page, in PDF format, if you'd rather just download that.

http://www.enworld.org/Story.htm

 

[Broccli_Head]

Thanks LB...Now I have bedtime reading!

 

[Maldur]

Broccli-head, welcome back to the story as well.

Seems like the original readers are here again ( or am I missing someone?)

LB It great how you keep switching perception.

 

[Horacio]

I'm here since the beginning, and I will be here even when the page count will be higher than in Wheel of Time saga...

 

[Lazybones]

Boy, I just hit a flurry of writing activity this week, so it's another "post-a-day" extravaganza. Enjoy!

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Book V, Part 22

Still under the effects of Dana’s fly spell, Benzan lifted over the heads of the surprised duergar warding the base of the stairs down from the battlements, skimming along the ceiling toward the heavy metal doors at the end of the hall. The two guards spun to follow him, but a moment later Lok, still hasted, crashed down the final bend of the staircase and slammed into the pair of them in a jumble of clashing armor and cutting blades. Both fell back into the more open space of the hall, one clutching a deep, frost-frozen gash in his shoulder.

Another pair of dwarves stood in front of the door, just a short distance from a large brass gong that dangled from the wall. Both dwarves held crossbows, which they aimed and fired at Benzan as he zoomed up the hallway toward the sealed portals.

The tiefling dodged the first shot, but felt pain erupt in his side as the second punched through the links of his armor and stabbed into his flesh. The burning sensation that spread outward from the point of impact served as sufficient warning that the bolt was poisoned, but Benzan gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain as he dove down to engage the two dwarves, his blade held before him like a lance.

Lok, meanwhile, traded blows with his two foes, who found themselves hard pressed despite being able to flank the genasi fighter. Lok struck the one he had injured again, but missed with a follow-up stroke that would likely have finished the duergar. He shrugged off a hit from the one behind him, a glancing blow that stung even through the layered protection of his magical platemail. Of greater concern was the sound of booted feet coming up the corridor, accompanied by the familiar clink of metal armor.

Reinforcements were on the way, it seemed.

Benzan, meanwhile, was finding himself hard pressed. His first thrust scored against its adversary, the sharp edge drawing a shallow but bloody cut along the side of the dwarf’s head. He remained hovering about six feet off the ground, making it difficult for the dwarves to reach him easily, but as he prepared for another attack the two duergar dropped their crossbows and began to… grow.

Benzan had seen the enlarge power of the duergar before, but it was still disconcerting to see the pair of them suddenly sprout up, expanding outward until they were taller than the tiefling and twice as broad. One lunged up and grabbed Benzan by the ankle, absorbing a stab from Benzan’s sword as he tried to drag the tiefling down into a grapple. The other took advantage of the distraction to slip his dirk into Benzan’s other leg, dragging a line of red out along the silvery mithral links of his armor.

Dana, meanwhile, charged down the narrow staircase that connected the battlements above with the hallway behind the doors below. Her continual flame was tucked into her belt—the magical fire cast no heat and did not set things on fire—and cast long shadows along the smooth stone walls as she ran, spear thrust before her in case any foes suddenly presented themselves. The sounds of battle ahead grew more insistent as she hurried after her magically speeded companions, and then the stair turned once more upon its length and she could see the open space and its battle raging below. She saw Lok and Benzan, each engaged with a pair of duergar, but more significantly her light caught on the metal-clad forms of another half-dozen duergar reinforcements, hurrying to join in the battle.

So to slow them down a bit, she cast daylight onto the tip of her spear.

The duergar cried out as the brilliant radiance of the light banished the darkness of the wide hall, tearing into their sensitive eyes. Their discipline kept them from breaking, but the illumination clearly hindered them as they came forward, shielding their eyes from the light with raised arms. The distraction also aided Lok, who took advantage of his adversaries’ distress to finish the already wounded dwarf with a punishing blow to the head and immediately spinning into a follow-up that crushed mightily into the side of the second. The crippled dwarf fell back, toward his onrushing companions, and Lok moved to meet the charge with cold resolution burning in his eyes.

Benzan, meanwhile, drew back, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the enlarged dwarf still clutching onto his leg. When that didn’t work, he tried his sword instead, thrusting it down into the dwarf’s shoulder. The duergar cried out in pain but refused to loosen his grip.

“All right then, we’ll do it the hard way,” Benzan cursed, twisting away from the dwarf’s dagger-thrusting companion and lifting his sword to thrust again.

Behind the dwarves, the metal doors thrummed with a mighty impact, although the dwarf-forged steel easily withstood the force of the attack. The complex triple-bolting mechanism on the inside of the doors looked like it was designed to withstand a battering ram, and certainly the efforts of even a determined group of quaggoth warriors.

The quaggoths had arrived, but for the moment it looked as though they would have to remain on the other side of the portals.

Lok met the onrushing duergar phalanx with a charge of his own, taking the first dwarven chop on his shield and responding with an overhead swing that crushed the dwarf’s helmet hard against his skull. The dwarf staggered back, blood jetting from the wound, although the steel cap had spared his life. Almost immediately two dwarves came at Lok from either side, flanking him as their weapons tore into his defenses, seeking gaps. There weren’t many of those to be found, but a pair of hits did tell, tearing shallow gashes in his sides as he struggled to hold against the full force of the duergar rush.

Behind the melee, the dwarf that Lok had injured earlier paused to find and drink a healing potion, while the last dwarf summoned up the power of an enlarge spell.

Then both of them vanished.

Dana saw that Lok’s motions, while still effective, had slowed down to their usual pace, indicating that Cal’s haste spell had run its course. Similarly, she felt the strength of her divine power start to wane, although the endurance she had cast earlier remained potent. She saw the two dwarves behind the melee turn invisible, but was more concerned with the five that had surrounded Lok and were tearing into him from every direction. Without hesitation she thrust forward with her spear, tearing into the back of one of Lok’s attackers. The duergar staggered forward in pain, leaving an opening that Lok exploited with another powerful stroke. The dwarf cried out and went down, clutching at the wide gash in its chest.

The heavy metal doors pounded again and again, although they barely seemed to give with each furious impact. The two dwarves battling Benzan redoubled their efforts with each blow, knowing that if they failed to hold here that enemies would be released into their lair. The dwarf holding Benzan loosened his grip and brought up his axe in a two-handed overhand stroke, slamming into Benzan’s stomach. His mail absorbed the force of the blow, but even so it was clear from his expression that the tiefling felt the power of the attack. The other dwarf lunged again at Benzan’s leg, having drawn a sword that replaced his earlier dagger. Before he could strike, however, he twisted suddenly to reveal a long quarrel stuck into the small of his back.

Apparently Cal had discovered that the arrow slits in the doors could be used both ways.

Benzan let out a feral cry and thrust forward with his sword as he swooped low, driving the magical bronze blade into the first dwarf’s throat. The metal links of the dwarf’s armor parted before the strength of the blow, and the dwarf fell back in a heap, its axe falling from its suddenly powerless fingers. The other dwarf tried to fight through its pain and prosecute its attack against the tiefling, but Benzan spun and met its charge with the tip of its blade.

The dwarf went down, clutching at its ruined eye as it writhed in agony.

Benzan was at the doors in an instant, even as the pounding from without continued. It took his experienced eye just a few moments to figure out how to operate the complex locking mechanism, and then he pulled the bolts back and tugged at the heavy doors.

The doors burst open as a wave of quaggoths burst into the hallway. Benzan was just able to dodge back from the suddenly opening doors, but was caught up in the charge and was tossed hard up against the wall by a raging quaggoth. Gasping for breath, he managed to bring his sword up in a defensive position as the quaggoth loomed over him, teeth bared.

“HEY! The fight’s over there!” the tiefling yelled angrily.

“Taktak!” Cal’s voice came out over the bedlam, but even as the gnome shouted the warning the quaggoth leader was there, angrily grabbing the quaggoth warrior and hurling him bodily down the corridor. Then they were past, and Cal was there, a look of concern on his face.

“Ben, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” the tiefling muttered, but he did look a sight with the multiple injuries that he’d suffered. “Help the others!”

But the fight, already winding down at that point, came to a quick end with the arrival of the quaggoths. Of the five enemies that had ringed Lok, three were down and one was hurt bad when the quaggoth warriors tore into the two survivors. The two that had turned invisible had apparently gone for more help, for there had been no sign of them since they vanished and a quick cantrip by Cal confirmed that there were no stray magical auras in the area.

As Dana turned her healing talents toward helping Benzan, Lok and a pair of the quaggoths checked the hallway to make sure that no more duergar warriors were immediately forthcoming. None of them had any illusions that the news of their coming had not been spread throughout the complex by now, but the place seemed strangely quiet, carrying that same subdued feeling that they’d sensed in the outer areas before. They could not afford to dally now, however, and give the duergar time to adapt.

Taktak came over to where Cal, Dana, and Benzan were standing together near the doors. Benzan looked a little better with Dana’s treatment of his injuries, but his eyes narrowed as the quaggoth approached. The deep bear barked something, a short phrase, then turned and walked back to where his companions were looting the corpses of the slain duergar.

“He said that when the taste of blood touches them, his people often… I guess the nearest translation would be to say they ‘lose it.’”

The tiefling wiped a spatter of blood—not his own, this time—off of his cheek, and glanced over at the cluster of deep bears. “Yeah, well, just keep them away from me. Something tells me that we’re going to have more than our share of blood around us before this is finished.”

Dana and Cal exchanged a look, but neither said anything as they hefted their weapons and followed the quaggoths deeper into the dwarven complex.