Bingo and I began doing our best to shatter that crystalline mote of undeath as best we could. I felt my power sinking into it, slowly unraveling its structure, small bits of white mist flying around it like comets. Bingo landed one particularly strong shot on it, but then proceeded to hook his shots left, with an unnerving consistency.
“I thought you knew how to use that thing?” I nodded at the bow in his hands.
He frowned briefly. “Shut up, hellspawn.” I grinned at the jab and struck again at the crystal.
Dex cleared away a space in the middle of the floor before the pillar, shoving bodies to either side. I passively wondered if he actually knew any of the formerdunkel he was handling. Chose not to ask. Bad enough that he was a deep elf to begin with, worse still that he was apparently a trained assassin, but I didn’t want to take it to the worst of all by aggravating him with misplaced humor. Arn began laying out the clues that would look like a portal ritual had been used, while Zenith ducked around behind the column and began casting in earnest.
I heard the sounds of fighting behind us, and risked a glance back. Two of those big ragged-toothed ghouls, similar to the one that had initially dropped the living J’Tiel, were going at it tooth and nail with Rhogar and J’Tiel’s blood-dripping copy. As I watched, the two did some sort of shadow-step, drifting into insubstantial mists the color of black smoke, and flickered directly over to Bingo and I. I barked out a warning, and Bingo backed away before the thing could truly get a grip on him. I dodged left and right, but caught a claw along my side for my efforts anyway. I felt the numbing tingle go through my muscles again as the ugly thing drew blood, but fortunately the feeling passed quickly.
The ghouls caught sight of the mote atop the column, and began running towards it. Rhogar and J’Tiel were charging up behind them, and peeled away through us to chase after them. Arn abandoned his elaborate deception to dodge a passing attack by one of the ghouls and then to chase after it. The two flesh-eaters split, one going around the column to the left and the other right, both no doubt angling for the stairs to get up to the top and to the mote, which was now wobbling unsteadily where it hovered.
I really hoped they didn’t notice Zenith, or we were cooked.
Dex, meanwhile, was slamming the great doors shut and shouting something in her language. I caught sight of a flood of other creatures behind the doors as she was shutting them.
So we really were trapped in here now. Nothing for it, I suppose. I resumed hammering the mote with blasts of arcane power, slowly whittling chunks off it. Bingo managed to hit it a few times, one really ringing off it, as well.
Dex was still shouting. I turned back to see him leaning against the door, trying to wedge something under it to keep it shut. “There’s no lock or bar!” He shouted at me when he saw me looking back.
I reached into a side pocket of my pack and drew out two enchanted nails I’d had since…well, since a long time ago, and tossed them over to him. He slammed one home in the crack of the doors, and it sank swiftly into the material, its steel seeming to melt into every crevice in the doorway. The pounding on the other side lessened a bit once the enchantment took hold, and Dex cautiously backed away.
Somewhere right around then, Jhaelent managed to cut his bonds. He had a tiny dagger made of bone, and had been working at the rope that bound his hands and feet. He shot up and screamed “You won’t have me like some chattel! I’ll have none of that!” and with a quick gesture released a burst of chill mixed with fragments of bone at Bingo and I. Most of it didn’t pass my armor, but I was still irritated that he was free again.
“Jhaelent is free!” I shouted. Dex whipped around and flung one of his shadowy daggers at him, which seemed to catch him a bit by surprise. Jhaelent immediately ran around towards the back of the pillar. Arn caught a glimpse of him over his shoulder, but was busy dealing with the ghoul he was chasing.
I saw the other ghoul appear at the top of the pillar, where it immediately moved alongside the mote and began drinking in the white flecks of power bleeding from its cracked surface. A moment later, Rhogar came up the same way, and swung that big sword of his in an arc that tore the ghoul’s arm off at the shoulder with a messy spray of black ichor. The arm, free of its body, was sailing away to land atop the column naturally for just a moment, before it slowed in midair, stopped, and swung back to vanish into the mote’s crystal structure. At the same time, two of the white cometary fringes struck Rhogar in his left side and the back of his head, rocking him in place.
The ghoul turned and leaped on him, clawing at his eyes with its remaining good arm. He shouted, beating at the thing with the spiked pommel of his sword, and staggered around trying to tear it off his chest.
The second ghoul broke free of its melee with Arn, and dashed around – I assumed up the stairs behind the column to reach the mote as well. Jhaelent was just barreling through that space as well, and Arn turned to focus on him, leaping over and intercepting the necromancer before he could pass cleanly. As Arn’s hands became those of a bear, he raked across Jhaelent’s naked back and drew copious quantities of blood with his claws. The little elf screamed in pain (good, suffer, you wretch, is what I remember thinking) and vanished behind the other ghoul.
J’Tiel was at the top of the column now, and Dex was headed behind Arn, when the doors behind us truly began to reverberate with blows. Something massive was trying to break through, and I really didn’t like the way that was going. I’d accounted for all the bad guys – except possibly Jhaelent – so I still had hope that Zenith was getting the job done back there. Bingo and I edged forward, as close as we could get to the column while maintaining a clear enough view of the mote to get clean shots.
The second ghoul popped up atop the column and took up station exactly where the first had been, also seeming to bask in the bleeding white energy emanating from the crystalline thing. J’Tiel came up with it, chasing it – I assume it had passed right by him on the stairs in its rush.
Rhogar finally found a good purchase, and sank that spike on the end of his sword into his ghoul’s back repeatedly, getting a good solid grip on it with his other hand. At last, he reached up with his hand, gripped the jaw of the ghoul, and twisted with his sword, ripping the head clean off of the torso of the thing.
The body flew directly into the mote, almost dragging Rhogar with it. He let go of its head when he realized what was happening, and it too flew into the spinning crystalline lattice.
The mote ignited for a second, releasing a burst of white flame that enveloped the ghoul, Rhogar, J’Tiel’s bloody self, and Jhaelent, who had come up the steps behind J’Tiel. All but the ghoul were staggered by this, and I could see J’Tiel and Rhogar were on their last legs.
There was little I could do – I kept pouring energy into the mote, hoping against hope that we’d destroy it in time.
Jhaelent, meanwhile, seemed to have snapped what little sanity can be said to be possessed by a dark elf obsessed with the worship of the undead. He ran forward to get between Rhogar and the other ghoul, screaming something unintelligible.
And was almost immediately hit by one of the flying streaks of energy from the mote.
I think I might have seen his skeleton illuminated from within for a second…but he sank to his knees, and rolled over to one side, and I lost sight of him. I shouted “Don’t let him die up there!”, hoping Rhogar would again snatch the little parasite and fly him down to the bottom before he expired.
Too late. As I got the last syllable out, something made a terrible belching sound, and another of the hound-ghouls erupted up, shedding flesh and hair that used to belong to its living self. It still carried the little bone knife, and it swiped at J’Tiel as it then raced toward the edge of the column nearest the door. Its features were different than the others – the skin darker, blotchier, and its teeth were all serrated with jagged points. His eyes, rather than the deadened green of rot in the others, glinted red and even seemed to bear a bit of light of their own.
It leaped from the column, hit with a roll, and raced towards the doors, shouting in a scratchy voice, “I come to serve you, my lords!”
I motioned Dex, who immediately charged after it. Those ghouls are fast, though, and this one faster – it pulled ahead easily and reached the doors before him. It barreled into them at full speed, splintering the wood and cracking timbers.
Enough for whatever was on the other side to finish the job. With an audible snapping sound, my nail’s enchantment was broken, the engraved spike skittering across the floor, runes on its surface smoking and a glowing red heat quickly fading from it. The doors themselves shattered, and I could see a mass of figures on the other side. Jhaelent’s new ghoulish form skipped into them, laughing maniacally and holding its dagger aloft.
J’Tiel, standing on top of the column, watched all this calmly. I saw a drop of blood drip up off his right ear as he stood observing. He shifted to the edge of the column towards the doors, hefted his spear. I thought at first he was going to throw it at the retreating ghoul.
Instead, he swung it directly at Rhogar.
Rhogar grunted in surprise as the spear bit into his left shoulder, and looked back at the grim face of our former ally.
“Keep on the mote,” I said to Bingo. “I’ll take this.” I refocused the strike I was getting ready onto J’Tiel instead of the mote, and with a muttered curse to soften him up. “Back to hell with you, spirit. You don’t deserve to wear that form, nor to emulate the soul you’ve copied. Return to the nothing from which you came!” The bolt of power whipsawed through the undead thing’s bloodied form, already weakened by the damage the mote and the ghouls had done to it, and ripped open its ribcage along its left side. Its innards spilled, frosted over and surprisingly bloodless, considering the exterior appearance of the thing. He fell backwards, face up and staring blankly. Rhogar still clutched the spear he’d pulled from his arm, and seeing J’Tiel drop, shrugged with a quick look down at me and turned towards the stairs.
It was at that moment that the mote exploded.
Bingo had taken another shot, and apparently remembered how to use his bow. The mote rang with a discordant tone, wobbled, and blew apart in a wave of white that filled the entire room. I heard the crowd of undead behind me shriek in alarm, and Rhogar vanished over the side behind the column. The roof above the explosion shuddered and crashed upward, a spear of sickly white light shining up through it. As I watched, a strange creature, itself all white, faceless and winged, with an arm that seemed to terminate in a bladelike appendage, flew like an arrow up into the darkness above the temple.
Whatever it was, I saw it for only a moment.
A second, then a third wave of white passed over me, each one slightly lesser than the previous. I leaned into them to avoid being toppled over. After the third, Arn came running around the column into sight. “Zenith’s got the wall open, let’s move!”
In the last glimmers from the space where the mote was fading, a body vomited itself out of the tiny spark, and fell unceremoniously to the ground between Arn and I.
J’Tiel. Again. This one with skin completely blackened, and a white mark splattered across its face. Arn saw the thing fall, but didn’t see where it had come from. He rushed forward and helped the creature up, then waved to Dex and I before running back around the column. He must not have seen it strike at Rhogar, and I didn’t have time to stop him. The blackened J’Tiel glanced over at me, then began to scale the column, climbing up to the top like a spider.
In Bael Turath, we had a saying which was old even when I was there. ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ Once was plenty for me.
I shouldered my bow and drew Sybarron, and raced after this new emulation of J’Tiel. As I came up to the pillar, I sent my will through the wire mesh and the tiny feather phylacteries in the soles, and lifted through the air to rise to the top of the pillar. J’Tiel’s dark form had beaten me there, and he was picking up the armor and gear his previous corpse had left behind. The spear was gone – taken by Rhogar. It looked over at me, and intoned roughly “I am not your enemy. This which had been here, was. The Raven Queen and King Doresain fought for possession of my soul, and she was victorious.”
I looked at that white sigil upon his face. The doubt must have shown through in my expression. “Though she defeated him, it was not without mark upon me.”
His eyes were black, with grey irises streaked with charcoal. I’m no great judge of character, but I couldn’t let this creature threaten our mission, or the team. Threaten my friends.
Strange, I hadn’t really thought it over, but I consider them friends now.
I muttered a deeper curse and vested a dose of my anger into Sybarron’s blade as I swung hard at this dark figure, slicing a cut across his chest while he tried to jump away. The blade cut deep, and I felt bone under there. Sybarron took the energy I pushed into it and accentuated it somehow, and the wound itself continued to spread and sizzle as I dodged back and held it ready for another strike.
J’Tiel’s copy held the armor to its chest with one arm while it backed away and began to try to climb down, keeping an eye on me as it did. I wasn’t sure what powers or abilities this thing might have, but I suspected this Doresain had invested more than a little juice into his new form. I simply could not afford to have this thing betray us again, or act as a homing beacon for the undead to come chasing after us. I charged forward again, catching the thing just as it was lowering itself down the side, one hand still gripping the ledge. It saw me coming, and almost seemed unconcerned at my approach. Perhaps it was resignation. Whatever the case, it knew my intent, but either risked my missing against the surety of a fall, or it simply accepted the outcome.
Sybarron sliced through most of its neck, just below the jaw. White powder flew out the side where the blade exited, and the hand gripping the ledge jerked reflexively, releasing its grip.
The body fell like a lump of rags, impacting the ground with a cracking thump that reminded me of a sack of stones. White dust flew out of a dozen additional lacerations as its skin burst in a range of weak places.
It did not move again.
I became aware that the horde outside the doors had begun to enter the room cautiously, and some had seen me. I could make out the form of a huge orb hovering in the doorway, which gave me a little extra incentive to run. I dashed across the top of the pillar after a quick scan and leaped off, the residual energy in my boots floating me to the ground quickly. I saw Zenith’s hole in the wall – he later told me that the ritual had been only partially done when the mote blew, and it was the wash of power leaving the mote that triggered its completion. I tromped through the soft stone corridor he’d formed – which felt unsettlingly like walking on the soft tissue of a great throat – and came out into the dark openness behind the temple.
The others looked back at me. “Let’s move. J’Tiel will not be accompanying us.”
We ran for the caves which we’d used to enter the great cavern.
Once we’d jogged for half an hour or so, we slowed down to a steady walk. The terrain had become rough again, and we didn’t want to accidentally fall into a crevasse.
“We really could have used Sered back there,” Arn said after he’d caught his breath.
I nodded. Zenith piped up, “I think I might have an answer for that.”
Dex said nothing, just trod silently alongside Zenith.
The gith continued. “I have established a permanent portal circle in my apartments back in Al’Veydra. If we can settle somewhere for a while, I can open the portal from here to that circle, someone can go through, and then after a set time reopen it to allow them to return. If we give a few hours for that, someone can go through and try to find Sered to bring him back, along with any supplies we might need.”
Arn nodded. “Not bad. That’d work. We just have to figure out a safe place to sit for a few hours.”
I looked around at the tunnel walls. “Perhaps where we found those remains a while back, or at the entrance to the Theif of Lives cave.”
Dex shrugged. “That place is a full day’s walk from here, the cave. I think we would be safe at the place where we found those remains.”
We all came to agreement on that, and set out. After four or five hours we got back there. Only the Black Queen knows how we did it, I don’t know how anyone can navigate reliably in these tunnels. There was no sign of pursuit.
I leaned back against the rough wall and watched impassively as Zenith went about setting up his portal. He exchange some words with the rest of the team, and Arn and Bingo went through once he opened it. The thing sealed itself up after twenty seconds or so.
“They’ll be back in my quarters in six hours.” The gith settled down on the floor, cross-legged.
“Damn. I forgot to ask them to bring me some chicken from the pub.”
The four of us – Dex, Rhogar, Zenith, and I – waited in the dark for a long while. We took turns getting some rest, and mostly just sat thinking quietly. When we were all awake, we chatted about the next set of actions to take. We all agreed that our previous route in was now probably barred to us, and the front way was still just as dangerous.
But we’d dealt Casava a blow from which he might not recover. The mote was gone, and with it his primary power source with which he was commanding his undead army. His trap had failed and resulted in disaster for him. If his troops actually had a morale, this would be a major blow. On the other hand, most mindless ghouls might follow him out of compulsion rather than convincing.
Six hours went by – they felt much quicker sitting here than walking through the tunnels, which surprised me. As promised, Zenith rose from his place and repeated the ritual of opening, and the silver slice through the air widened to emit Bingo, then Arn, and finally Sered.
“Welcome back, guys. Welcome to the land’s intestinal tract, Sered.” I said from my spot. I was laying back with my head resting on my pack. I sat up to greet them all.
“This is certainly an unpleasant place,” Sered said.
“Still good to have you with us.” I responded. He nodded.
“What now?” Said Arn.
“Well, we’ve been discussing…” Zenith laid out what we’d chatted about here.
“Hmm. That’s much the same as what we were talking about in Al’Veydra.” Sered responded. “Perhaps we should attempt to repeat the surprise that you used when first arriving at Cozule. Find another way in, another side passage perhaps, and enter that way.”
We all came to agreement on this, and after a longer rest we got a move on. I’d like to say we made it as easily as the two-day journey around Cozule to its rear, but that would be lying.
The path we took was, it seemed to me, mostly vertical. At times accidental. And always in a direction further from what I thought was the direction of Cozule. Not that I am any great navigator or could have brought us along a better route, but we took so many wrong turns that eventually even Dex became lost. For four days straight (according to Dex’s timekeeping) we fumbled about in the dark. One day of that was along a wide river that silently slid by on the left, overhung with glowing worms. Quite beautiful, really, except that we were hopelessly lost.
For several hours after the river vanished from sight, we meandered on, Dex looking for familiar trail marks, the rest of us just debating whether we shouldn’t key in Zenith’s ritual again and start over from Al’Veydra.
We entered a cavern – smallish, with a mossy floor – and Dex finally let out a short and soft exclamation. “Marker!”
We all clustered around him, dimming our lights so as not to ruin his vision. “What does it say?” Rhogar spoke from the back, keeping an eye back up the tunnel we had just emerged from.
Dex contemplated the writing on the wall, engraved into the stone. “It’s very old, I don’t think I’ve ever seen our language written this way. Apparently this used to be a major trail, and where we just came from was a side-way around to another destination. A tributary to the highway, if you will.”
I looked at it, even though it was gibberish to me. “What happened? How is it that it came to be unused?” I heard a soft rumble somewhere, but it wasn’t nearby, so I didn’t really give it a lot of thought.
“Do I look like a historian to you? I’m not sure. I can see this was amended some time later, the pictographs are a little different. There’s a bit about the river we saw back there, and it says something about ‘soft ground,’ whatever that means.” Dex was scraping moss away from the words inscribed into the wall.
Bingo perked up for a second. “Did you all hear that?”
Arn looked down at him. “Hear what?”
The rumbling got louder, and this time I felt it in my feet. A few small stones fell from the ceiling, one bouncing off Rhogar’s head with a click of stone on scale. “Ow!”
The shaking didn’t lessen, in fact if anything it grew worse. I looked out into the cavern and was a bit horrified to see a great sinkhole open up there, its edges racing towards us. “Look out!” I shouted, but it was really too late for that. The mossy earth beneath our feet quickly gave way before the advancing edge as the sinkhole collapsed beneath us.
We fell, happily, for only a short while and among softer things than rocks. I suspect the river had soaked into clays beneath the room we’d been in, and there wasn’t enough of a stable base to keep the floor from collapsing into the next cavern down. All that academic thought was interesting, but it didn’t really help to put aside the fear as we tumbled down into the dark.
Once we came to rest, Sered called out a head-count to make sure we were all okay. Bingo needed to be extracted from a thick pile of mud, but otherwise we were all unharmed. We stood, as a group, and surveyed our surrounds.
Dex was the first to talk. “Oh my…I didn’t realize we were this far off.”
We all looked in the direction he was facing – to see a cavern that made Cozule look like a tiny bubble in a lake. In its center, surrounded by enormous tilled mushroom fields and fungal orchards, lay a great city, wreathed in blue, purple, and red afterglows. We were in a small alcove off the main cavern, having tumbled with a mudslide down onto the edge of an orchard. In the light of the city, I could actually see reasonably well in this place. Nice break from our torchlight.
“What is this place?” I asked, knowing I was probably not going to like the answer.
“Erelhei-Cinlu, our capital.”
Arn let out a slow whistle. “Hmm, definitely not where we were planning.”
“We need to get you all away from here, and onto a main road. We do not want to get caught here by a patrol without a pass.” Dex started scanning around to see a proper pathway.
Rhogar put a hand on his shoulder and turned him forcibly to the left. “Too late – trouble coming.”
I looked where he was gazing. A small pack of dunkel, led by an enormous spider-bodied centaurish creature, were approaching at speed, weapons drawn.
