I tried to peer ahead, and as I did I felt what I’d been hoping not to feel – a stone catch my foot. I stumbled forward and slammed my head against an outcropping of the rock wall. Gripping the wall, I realized I was on a really steep incline – and looking what I thought was “down” I could make out a purplish haze of light.
And the silhouette of the ghoul in the light.
And two more with it.
They jumped me, as I expected they would, almost immediately. I felt the foulness of their claws sink into me, and my legs began to vibrate uncontrollably. I’m slightly surprised – albeit glad – that I didn’t piss myself there. I couldn’t move my feet, and the three of them were all over me. Not even thinking, I reached out for a small chord of the Fey through the curtains of the world, grabbed it, and hauled myself to where I saw the light coming from. Pulling a shred of Winter into the real with me, I left it there where I’d been before making my hasty exit – where it burst with a vicious snap of chilling ice.
The ghouls were nothing more than shattered blocks of frozen meat. Fragments of various sizes thumped their way down the incline to rest at my feet.
After what seemed like an age I could hear my friends coming for me, racing up the tunnel, and I turned to get a look at what was making the light I’d ported myself into.
A great cavern – and I mean great – opened before me. Ihnbharan was large, but you could still see the roof above you. Here, all that was lost in blackness. An entire town rested across from me, between us a chasm of a depth I could not make out. The light I’d seen was coming from that town, purple hazes traversing its various towers. I was emerging from a tunnel in the wall about even with the town, and beneath my exit was a ledge, perhaps fifteen feet down.
It’s probably good that I still hadn’t got hold of my legs, though, because on the ledge was a caravan, crawling with undead.
And they were all looking right at me.
Two huge carts, linked and crammed full of stripped and mumbling dark elves, were slowly creaking across the ledge towards the town. They were drawn by an enormous beetle the likes of which I’d never seen. On the back of the beetle, a great arbalest rested, made of bone and sporting two huge shaft channels. On each of the carts, two ghouls stood guard over great padlocks, and wights walked escort beside the horrible train of misery.
Behind the train, something that looked like a giant that had been entombed in spider webs shuffled along, and two great spiders – one with a rider – clicked along behind it. The rider appeared to be drow as well, and he was lining up and mumbling at me.
I took advantage of my instability and threw myself to the ground just as my skin lit up with purple fire – darkfire, I think the elves call it.
Something whizzed past me, whether arrow or spell I can’t recall. I could hear the rest of us getting closer, and shouted back “Look out! Enemies outside ahead!”
I think it was J’Tiel who got to me first, and when he realized I wasn’t moving, he unceremoniously hauled me aside and shoved me against the wall. As he did, a whirling cloud of razor-tipped…well, somethings…appeared exactly where I’d been. Most of them buried themselves in my arm when they first appeared, but the rest assumed an orbit right at the entrance to the tunnel we were in.
Undaunted by this, J’Tiel ran up among them, and made a leap off the ledge – I couldn’t see, but I assume he was attempting to get on top of one of the carts.
Except as he left the ground, a great web snatched him out of the air and dragged him off to the right, out of my view. I heard a rather heavy thump, and I think he swore something in Giantish, but that could just have been my ears playing tricks on me.
The rest of the gang cycled past me and made their various leaps and shouts, and pretty soon they were all gone from view.
Leaving me alone. In the dark. Dangerously close to pissing myself.
Why is it that the majority of the times I’m needed, I find myself unable to move?
I cursed my misfortune as the sounds of battle began to ramp up in earnest outside my little cave, and struggled to get my legs working again. The pins and needles had settled in, which was a good sign, but still left me without the use of them.
I have to admit – I was pissed off. Sybarron was goading me on, and there I was without the use of my legs.
I gave in. Turned inwards to my anger, the way Mahar had shown me few weeks ago. And unlocked the furious fiend waiting there.
I didn’t expect there to be a physical transformation. I also didn’t expect it to hurt so damn much. But there was, and it did. Which made me even more angry. I felt my face tighten, as if it was being stretched over too wide a skull, and bony hooks pierced my skin all along my jaw. My own horns seemed to spread wide, and both my arms and legs lengthened, sprouting sharp, horny protrusions of their own. I screamed then – not ashamed to admit it. It really hurt. I was on fire, inside, and the heat was almost unbearable.
Let me point something out before I continue – I do most of the cooking when we camp. Not because I’m particularly good at it, though I am. Because I can wrap food up, and place it carefully exactly in the fire where I want it, and adjust it as needed. I don’t burn. I barely feel fire.
So when I tell you that I was on fire, I want you to understand just how ****ing hot it was. And for someone who doesn’t normally feel pain at fire, this was a surprise.
The heat subsided a bit after a few seconds, and I could feel my wounds actually burning. As I watched, a bite from a ghoul on my left hand pulled itself back together, and became a faded scar before vanishing completely. My skin was harder, paler, looked like some sort of whitish armor, almost.
Pretty neat stuff, despite the pain.
More moments passed before I could finally stagger to my feet and come forward into the light again. Unslinging my bow as I did, I came out to see various members engaged with the wights and the great webbed-up whatever-it-was. J’Tiel I didn’t see, until I realized that the lump on the wall to my right was him – plastered there and ripping himself free of an enormous clump of webbing. The mounted spider had clambered up on the wall and was approaching him – I could see the rider held a rod of some kind, and his armor was covered with runes that looked necromantic in flavor.
Probably not the best guy to have catch you when you’re webbed in place.
“You’ve abused the privilege of death long enough, elf, time to repay the Black Queen for your treachery,” I sang out, lacing my words with the deepest arcane frost and sting I could muster, and channeled it through the enchanted silver etchings of the bow. They had the desired effect, carrying my intent through his ears and into his mind – I actually saw his ears frost over, he started rubbing his eyes, and the shot he’d leveled at J’Tiel went wide. Almost hit me, but hey, one more miss chalked up!
I heard a snarling over on the ledge, cat-like, and saw that Arn had donned some form like a great black panther. I almost couldn’t see him in the dim light. The snarling was because he’d apparently just taken the brunt of a drubbing from that big webbed thing, and he sailed cleanly over the edge and into the chasm.
I couldn’t remember whether he had anything that would at least float him. I did not relish the thought of picking up pieces of his splattered remains, so put it out of my mind for a while.
The fight was racing back and forth atop and among the carts, and the big arbalest took a shot at Zenith at one point. I remember hearing him shout out when one of the huge bolts sank into his calf.
Turning back to my pre-chilled spider-rider, I levied an arrow at him and drew an ice shard from deepest Winter into its head. I poured my cursing malice and every ounce of fire from my blood into it while doing so, and drew perfect aim on the armored necromancer before me. Loosing it without a sound, I had the satisfaction of seeing it sink into his side. The ice on his ears flew in a great sparkle, and I saw the chill effect begin to spread immediately from the new wound. I’d like to think I actually heard it crack a few ribs, but that might have been just my imagination. Left untended, that shard would eventually freeze him solid, so it was my hope that we could keep him distracted and unable to recover from the wound.
“If you can, hit that rider!” I shouted out. I caught a glimpse of Bingo nodding and taking aim with his own little bow as I leaped down to the ground.
For the next few moments I stayed on the spider rider, trading shots with him, always adding to the chill with my best ranged shots when I could. Bingo also nailed him a few times, which helped a lot. I watched the crystals form over his side, and eventually his left arm froze up before he seemed to give up the effort. In an almost impossible move, he spurred his mount ahead, and in one great leap it covered the entire length of the train to come to a grip on the wall ahead, and vanished down another hole.
I chased him for a second, expecting him to re-emerge and begin shooting at us from the cover of his new hiding place, and in lieu of that I’d take my chances trying to break open one of the carts. The drow inside the caravan were now screaming and yelling to be set loose, reaching and clawing at anything in reach. Can’t say that I blame them, they were obviously the next meal for the ghoulish town ahead.
The necromancer was not to be seen again, so I turned my attention to the caravan.
And failed to see the other spider, which had come up on me from behind.
Instead, I felt its bite crunch into my back through my mail, lancing pain as the links pressed into my skin and drew blood. I did my best to leap free, but it shook me like a terrier would shake a rat. I noticed then, as I was swinging back and forth and trying not to snap my own neck, that the spider itself was hollow. It was dead.
I’d never considered the appearance of undead arachnids or insects. Their bones being on the outside, it’s really quite hard to distinguish them from their living selves. I suppose zombie versions would be slow and shambling.
This wasn’t a zombie, that was for sure.
It flung me to the ground, and I felt rock dust grind into my already-bleeding forehead. I staggered to my feet, and turned to face the great beast, easily as large as a horse.
Whereupon one of the wights leaped down and raked me from on top of the caravan. I heard the whistling scream it made as it hit, and its claws pounded me like forge-hammers.
How is it that undeath sports so much strength? Someday I’d have to figure out how to fix that.
I scrambled across the floor, trying to duck under the spider and run back to rejoin my comrades, where I’d seen they had just managed to drop that giant thing. Unfortunately I wasn’t as quick on my feet as I’d hoped, because I felt that spider lock its mandibles (or whatever it is that giant, undead spiders use to grab with their mouth) on my leg. The last thing I remember after that was feeling it pick me up off the floor, hanging stupidly for a moment while the wight looked on, and then seeing the wall moving at a really unreasonable speed towards me.
I came to, I guess a little while later, to find the rest of the gang moving up around my position – Arn was back, apparently caught himself a lucky break in the form of a ledge on the way down.
My flesh began to knit itself back together again, the fire in my blood sealing off the injuries on my back and leg.
I rose shakily to my feet. The caravan hadn’t got far, and we all looked around at each other. I thanked Bingo for taking the moment to bandage me up. “Nothing for it,” said Zenith, looking sourly at the caravan, “guess we’d better go see if we can free them.”
I then realized with a start that there was a dark elf standing right behind J’Tiel. I must have jumped, he saw me raise the bow and begin to draw before waving me down.
“He’s okay – he’s been helping us. Got family in one of those cars or something, been tracking it here for a couple of days. And what the hell is wrong with your face, man?” The huge man leaned forward, his armor creaking and the runes on his skin shadowed strangely in the dim light.
“Hm. Okay. My face? Oh, sorry…long story. Tell you later.” He looked unconvinced, but didn’t press.
We all gathered up and began to shamble forward, when we heard the laughter. From behind several stalagmites ahead and near the caravan, skeletons clattered out, leveling bows at us. They were elvish bones, I could see. Probably former residents of the town ahead.
The laughter I couldn’t quite understand. I mean, I know someone was laughing, but at first I couldn’t see who.
Then I caught sight of him – our necromancer friend, he’d popped out of his hidey-hole and was on the wall further down the way. I suppose it was him to blame for these skeletons.
“Jhaelent. That rat bastard.” Someone said.
I didn’t stop looking at on his spider down there to see who’d spoken. “Wait a second…you know him?”
I’d have waited for the answer, but the arrows started flying.
