The entire group froze for a moment, looking down that corridor.<\/p>\n
Nothing happened.<\/p>\n
As I stood straight again, the breeze from outdoors rustling my hair, nothing continued to happen.<\/p>\n
After two or three more moments of this, the group began to move again, checking the room out.<\/p>\n
Bingo looked back at me, grinning like a fox who has just stolen a few eggs. I scowled, but grinned back. Shrugged. “Okay, I was wrong. False alarm.”<\/p>\n
I’m pretty sure I heard Dei mutter “Damn right. Almost soiled myself there.”<\/p>\n
As we moved into the room further, it became clear that there were also small piles of stone, little monuments to the decay of Moss Kag. Its nature, being a former Fomorian stronghold, was dire, and the little bits and pieces we could make out gave the impression of a city built for a reason the builders couldn’t quite understand.<\/p>\n
As I stood watching down the deep corridor I’d thought held our enemy, its facade became clearer – around the rounded sides of the tunnel a great face had been carved, to make the tunnel appear as its mouth. Eyes and a nose above the tunnel completed the image, and the floor of the tunnel took on the appearance of a tongue melding into the floor of the main room. The other tunnel, the one off to the side, had no such relief, but was a plain and large opening.<\/p>\n
It was Sered that noticed the strings first, long strands of thick spiders’ web connecting various of the piles of stone. He ran his fingers across one as he held the other hand up in a motion of abeyance.<\/p>\n
He drew his sword and brought it to full brightness, showing us the connecting cable of web.<\/p>\n
“Cut it.” I said. These were more tripwires, though I suspected some form of bomb inside the connected piles.\u00a0Good attitude, I’ll make a proper owner of you yet<\/em>,\u00a0Sybarron<\/em> whispered to me.<\/p>\n “Not such a good idea, I think,” Nix spoke up.\u00a0Weaseling wizard<\/em>,\u00a0Sybarron<\/em> commented.<\/p>\n He produced no good idea why we should not cut the tripwires that were between the piles, but it did no harm to leave them for the immediate moment. I moved to a corner where few would be endangered, and drew a candle from my pack. I was preparing to light it and use this to burn through the tripwire closest to me, when I heard a gasp behind me.<\/p>\n Dei had moved fully into the center of the room, and was staring down the ‘mouth’ tunnel. Something glimmered purple down there, casting a strange light in shimmering beams like sunlight seen from beneath the surface of a clear lagoon.<\/p>\n One of those beams had struck him full in the face – I could actually see from its pervasive intensity that it illuminated his entire head, almost making it seem transparent. I held back the incipient joke about it showing me his skull to be empty, and pulled my bow out from behind me.<\/p>\n Nocking an arrow, I saw Dei stumble drunkenly towards the light.<\/p>\n Directly through the tripwire he’d been standing next to.<\/p>\n Something cracked and hissed from within the two piles of stone that the thread had been connected to, and sickly grey-green gas began to seep out of the piles into the air surrounding them. As I took this in, the purple glow shifted as though it fell into a hole in the air, reappearing next to Dei. Weaving tentacles of light reached to him, caressing his face and extended hand. Where they touched, his skin turned white, the veins taking on a charcoal grey color beneath the pallid skin.<\/p>\n I was about to fire a shot at the thing when I caught sight of a tiny yellow glow near to me. I was in the process of telling myself to look away when the thing flashed in my vision and I felt a crushing weight of excess thought pass through my mind – not painful, but I could not get a thought straight. Like trying to speak next to a great waterfall, getting a thought through this cacophony of noise was nearly impossible. Desperately I urged a tiny spark of frost into my bow and loosed the shot at the yellow orb. Something must have worked there, as it seemed to fragment for just a moment. Once my vision cleared a touch I realized I had stumbled through the wire I’d been intending to burn, and my candle was laying on the floor where I’d dropped it. More of the gas was flowing from the piles on either end of the wire I’d passed through, though fortunately I was only close enough to catch a whiff of them rather than a full lung of the stuff – and from the smell of it, the acrid tang told me I’d have regretted taking a breath of it.<\/p>\n Althea was not so lucky. She’d somehow raced forward to catch Dei’s attacker, and been tricked into a cloud of her own. She was rooted in place, hands on her throat and rasping out something that would have been a scream if she’d had air. Sered flowed in a move that carried him forward to engage the purple thing. The rest were firing and striking as best they could.<\/p>\n The combat flowed back and forth across the room, and as I observed, we were clearly in control of the situation. One thing that fascinated me was the stillness of the fight – these creatures made no sounds at all. I managed to maneuver mine into the cloud of poison with well-placed footwork and feint, but it turned out that the creatures were simply not breathing. I did notice as we went that they had some form of communication between them – they flashed at each other in patterns of rapid flickerings that were definitely not random.<\/p>\n Not long after Dei’s first engagement, the strange creatures apparently decided that they were not going to win this – the purple one let out a blast of light and again seemed to fall through a hole in the fabric of reality, reappearing right next to me – but before I could defend myself or attack it, it repeated the process and vanished up into the mouth-tunnel. The little yellow one winked away and vanished, as well. I felt the pull of that movement as the leader vanished from beside me, and this confirmed to me that these were balhannoth – a form of living energy, something that drew vitality from the suffering and pain echoing in the minds of those around it.<\/p>\n The heavy breathing of everyone around me slowly settled, and we regrouped while the awful gas slowly drifted out of the room, disappating into the air. Outside, shade of clouds began to pass over the field of red flowers, and I heard thunder beginning to sound in the distance.<\/p>\n We gathered in the entrance to the mouth-cavern, and began discussing what our next move would be. As the discussion went back and forth, Nix noticed a gleam above us – in the ‘forehead’ of the face, a small gem was inset, and had a glow to it that I had not noticed before. As he clambered up to reach it, that sense of foreboding claimed me again – but before I could stop him, he’d grabbed the gem and pried it loose.<\/p>\n Which, of course, set off the trap.<\/p>\n The bunch of us all sitting or leaning around had a moment’s warning as an enormous ball of stone came rolling down and out of the throat of the face. Fortunately no one was mashed by it, but several of us were hit squarely and thrown aside as it exited the mouth. As the boulder raced by, ironically I caught sight of a large carving of words on it – “Dragon” being the one that caught my eye.<\/p>\n We all variously stood or rose, brushing ourselves off and checking our hurts. Nix, of course, was uninjured. He looked at me a moment later, and seeing my appraising glance, stood straighter, brushing dust off his robe. “What?” He asked. I offered no answer, just shook my head and looked out at the boulder, finally bouncing to a rest at the end of a long trough gouged through the red flowers in the field outside.<\/p>\n We bandaged ourselves as well as we could, while Dei began a ritual of divination – some form of ghostly hand pointing in answer to his questions. Realizing speed was of the essence in capturing or killing the red-caps before they could warn Ihnbharan of our impending arrival, I also launched a\u00a0traveler’s chant<\/em>quietly in my corner.<\/p>\n After a few brief arguments we struggled our packs back on and started off down the side passage.<\/p>\n Along the way, we found the remains of the injured red-cap in the tunnel. He had been thrown from his mount into a bed of the red flowers which had intruded into the caves through a break in the wall, sunlight gleaming in on their scarlet petals.<\/p>\n Looking more closely, those petals surrounded a tiny, toothy maw. Realizing this, I felt belatedly relieved that I had not started a fight in the middle of that field, as I would most likely have been plant-food before I’d even known what hit me.<\/p>\n The tunnel had various wrecked friezes and reliefs carved into it, depicting Fomorian ‘art.’ To the uninitiated, Fomorians seem a positively chaotic race – and largely, this impression is true. As a student of the arcane and of military history, I have a sense of perspective of these creatures, and have developed a healthy respect for anything in the Feywild.<\/p>\n The rise and fall of mortal civilizations in the world seems to follow a predictable path – usually over thousands of years, different races rise to power, grow old and decrepit, and fall beneath their own weight or that of another race rising to power. In rare instances, two almost-equals will spend themselves out upon each other, which is what transpired to create the Bannerlands, where humans and other lesser races rise up in the vacuum created by the exit of their betters.<\/p>\n The Fey follow similar overarching patterns, but theirs are on a timescale that would make a human weep with madness.<\/p>\n The Fomorians and the Eladrin have warred, on and off, for countless millennia. Their conflict makes the war of Bael Turath and Arkhosia appear as the scuffle between children. In fact, it has been going on for so long that the presence of the conflict takes on the aspect of a mountain range or an ocean – it has always been, and until the Black Queen calls for the end of the world, it shall always be.<\/p>\n To consider the nature of Fomorians, a civilization ruled by them seems almost a contradiction – their individual split nature of calculating greed and random insanity would give one the impression that an organized society would be impossible. But Fomorians are nothing if not ruthless and intelligent, and even in their insanity they possess a sense of purpose. While one might be in thrall to its delusional craziness, another is plotting complex schemes of rulership. If it were not for their insanity, they likely would have defeated the Eladrin in short order and moved on to conquer the real and the Shadowfell as well. Any city of Fomorians will be half-sane, by nature, and they generate rules among themselves to buffer the impact of their inherent unpredictability.<\/p>\n For instance, the rulership of a Fomorian community, while considered a monarchy, does have aspects of a parliamentary process. They recognize that any one of them – even a king – will have moments when his or her insane nature (they call their twisted sides\u00a0golor<\/em>, and the times when that side rules them, they are considered ‘under the golor’) rules him. Thus, even a monarch must pass edicts through a council of seven advisors, and then a separate council of thirteen. Most times this is merely a formality, they do not review every decision made by the ruler, but any decision deemed to be of impact upon the community as a whole must be filtered through both councils with a mandatory three- and five-day wait before commencement. Either council may vote to return the order to the monarch for revision, which is then subject to another pass if the monarch does not simply decide that the order was crazy and should not be pursued.<\/p>\n In this way, they secure themselves from their own chaotic natures, and instill a measure of stability on themselves – enough to protect their more cunning sides from the insanity of their twisted natures.<\/p>\n Fielding an army, on the other hand, is far more difficult and demands more speedy decision-making. Most often, this is left to their Cyclopsi servants, and other slaves, with only a few Fomorian overseers – this is also because their population is somewhat naturally self-limiting. Surviving to adulthood as a Fomorian depends largely on not being slain by ones’ parents at a moment when both parents are suffering under the burden of their golor.<\/p>\n The ruins of Moss Kag, and the tunnel through which we chased those red-caps, echoed of the duality that is a Fomorian. I even at one point felt a bit dizzy for all the jarring insanity portrayed on those walls. The occasional breaks in the wall where flashes of lightning would stream in were decorated by the tiny little blood-poppies (I am no naturalist, nor a druid, so I chose to name them myself – I’m sure Arn could inform me to a greater extent what these were). The naked stone, where not exposed to the outside, was a rough carving, definitely less skillful than the corridors of dwarven architecture, but sure-footed nonetheless.<\/p>\n It was perhaps an hour, maybe two, when we finally caught sight of our quarry – a glimpse of a spindly leg and perhaps a spriggan’s cap dodging out of sight ahead of us. We accelerated our progress as best we could, until we reached a place where we clearly saw a red-cap’s red cap watching us from ahead, face watching down the corridor to see us approach. It ducked away quickly, so we could not truly tell if it knew that we had seen it.<\/p>\n After a hasty debate, I sent us all jogging right up to a spot short of the corner, and Althea to sneak up and have a glance around the corner.<\/p>\n She reported back that there was a broad opening into what might have once been a room, but which had been ripped open to the air on one side by weather and time. A yawning chasm in the floor, beside which stood a Fomorian statue, and a few smaller monuments were mounted within the room. She’d seen the spriggan on his spider holding next to the chasm. Where our tunnel let out, a glowing sigil at least twenty feet across blocked our path.<\/p>\n We quickly moved up the corridor, archers at the ready, covering Althea as she worked the sigil, attempting to disarm the thing. Neither I nor Nix could ascertain the nature of it by its pattern, and although Althea was able to bring its glow down for a moment, she was unable to disable it completely. The room itself was of great size, the far wall at least fifty yards from our entrance, the chasm some sixty feet across, and the opening to the outside was probably eighty, perhaps one hundred, feet across. I had another shiver of anticipation, thinking of Rain of Tears alighting there to gloat for a moment before decimating us.<\/p>\n When we got to the tunnel mouth, looking out into the room, right away from the shadows of the far side a Fomorian woman strode out and called out to us, “Welcome to my home, now prepare to die.”<\/p>\n I suppose Fomorians aren’t the best conversationalists, despite their interesting history.<\/p>\n She unleashed some kind of cloud of darkness directly before her, shielding herself from our arrows as we trained towards her to make a shot. We then saw two great winged shapes angle into the room, alighting roughly on ledges high up on the far wall, each one three-headed and heavy, truly monstrous combinations of dragon, ram, and lion.<\/p>\n Chimeras.<\/p>\n The two stayed on the ledges only long enough for their riders to dismount – medusae, hair flailing wildly and armed with bows, who stood back on the ledges and activated some form of strange harness. The harnesses shot small cables into the rock around them, and I realized then that these were intended to keep them in place should someone – such as myself – find ways to pull or shove them from their perches. The chimerae let go of the ledges right away and sailed down to the floor of the cave, and as they did I caught sight of a flaming orb descending through the lashing rain of the storm outside. The orb was covered with eyes, and a toothed maw occupied its bottom third. A beholder of some sort…I’d heard of this, but never seen one, an “Eye of Flame”.<\/p>\n At first, the distance between our entrance and the various foes seemed a perfect opportunity – the archers unloaded upon one of the chimerae, putting more than a few good hits on the thing. Figuring them for having to close with us, it seemed we might have a perfect choke-point set up.<\/p>\n Then the troll vaulted out of the chasm, not thirty feet from us. Covered with vines and flowers, all of them diseased and warped, this troll – a female, the empty folds of her flat breasts hanging limply over her wart-speckled ribs – rumbled some form of incantation while waving what looked like a mandrake root at us.<\/p>\n Brownish vapor swirled instantly from the totem, and within the corridor we were using for shelter enormous thorns grew from the floor and the walls. Realizing my right foot was speared painfully, and seeing the others suffering similarly, I called to switch targets to her. Dei did something that knocked her over, almost pushing her back into the chasm, and the rest of us peppered her with arrows and other ranged harm. Dei invoked an angel aspect armed with swords directly behind the greenish brown shaman, and she scrabbled herself back into the chasm of her own volition, escaping our vision and avoiding further reprisal.<\/p>\n The beholder fired some kind of bluish ray from one of its eyes, snaring Althea and dragging her from where she was working the sigil – some kind of magical harness pulling her towards the approaching chimerae. They weren’t yet upon her, but it would not be long. As she was dragged forward, the thorny vines that had penetrated her legs were torn free from the wall, leaving her still stuck and incapable of running. It then glared at me with an eye that emitted some kind of crimson beam, and I promptly ignited.<\/p>\n I am Shadrim, and as such am fortunate to be gifted with a natural proclivity towards fire. It is very difficult to burn me. This managed a little singeing, but for the most part my natural resistance kept the majority of the flames at bay.<\/p>\n I took another shot at the injured chimera before retreating to the rear of the group, and Bingo took a double shot at something I could not see. Sered moved forward to go to Althea’s aid, and prompty burst into flame as the beholder took notice of him. It also did a quick double-take at Althea, and she too lit up like kindling.<\/p>\n Shadrim resist flame well. Eladrin (and apparently devas), on the other hand, burn merrily when ignited. As Althea proceeded to do. She writhed on the ground there, trying to tear herself free of the vine remnants and scramble back among us. Sered’s flames went out quickly, but I could see char marks on him.<\/p>\n Something broke free of her, and she fey-stepped back into the corridor with us. Sered was now up against the chasm with one of the chimera and the Fomorian. Bingo was out among them as well, a little ways behind the deva. The rest had broken clean of the vines, but those were still sticking people constantly. I was smoldering still, flames dancing around on me. They weren’t enough to harm me, but they hadn’t gone out yet. Nix was up in the front of the corridor, watching and looking for a shot. I moved in and up just in time to see the beholder’s flame set him thoroughly on fire. At the same time, the Fomorian dropped another cloud of darkness – right into the corridor and on the rest of us.<\/p>\n I heard the shouts of everyone around me, the blackness seemed to be a form of necrotic cowling, I could feel it sucking life out of me. Fortunately my armor still kept most of it away – though the tiny link among the mail, the one that originally came from the tomb of Laihrannger, grew frigidly cold. Stumbling forward, I managed to make my way out of the clinging tendrils of darkness just out of the corridor. I saw Nix laying there, strands of darkness leeching color from him even as the flesh on his face burned, melted like candle wax.<\/p>\n I took stock of the chaos, looked up to check the two medusae, seeing an arrow winging past me. One a male, one a female, wearing tight-fitting combat harnesses and grey cloaks. Both had bows and seemed terribly calm for the amount of pure mess going on here. If we didn’t pull together soon, I knew we were doomed.<\/p>\n The combat harnesses. They weren’t just harnesses.<\/p>\n They were uniforms.<\/p>\n Even as I noticed this, I saw the female lock eyes with me. I was glad she was a good distance away, or I might have never recovered from that gaze. I felt slower, colder for just a moment. In that moment, I saw it.<\/p>\n The badge – the badge on her shoulder.<\/p>\n She<\/em> <\/em>was the one that had been bargaining with the lamia Liss, bargaining to purchase us. She was a servant of Mahar, a member of <\/em>Shal Rava<\/em>, the Devil’s Due.<\/p>\n I moved swifter than I thought I could – I slung my bow and drew\u00a0Sybarron<\/em>, and charged across the room. I was waving both arms over my head, swingingSybarron<\/em> like a flag-banner, and shouting in my best knowledge of the language of the Underplane, “Wait! Wait! Servant of Mahar!” I left a strange trail of shaded light behind me, like a trail of violet ribbon and seeping shadow chasing me.<\/p>\n Both the beholder and one of the chimerae took an interest in me – the beholder trying to ignite me, the chimera simply mauling me as I passed by. I dodged most of the first strike by the chimera, and almost turned to laugh at the beholder, feeling the heat dance up and down my face. If I’d had time, I might have even turned on it to unleash what\u00a0Sybarron’s<\/em> defiant clarion sang in my head. The thing might have been a child’s ball, for trying to burn\u00a0me<\/em>.<\/p>\n As I closed with the medusae, I could see my shouting was having some effect, as they seemed given pause. Unfortunately it also seemed they couldn’t understand a word I was saying.<\/p>\n Leave it to me to have a moment of glory in a language no one speaks.<\/p>\n Switching to common, I sheathed Sybarron and fell to one knee, shouting “I have a message for Mahar! Wait! This is a mistake!!”<\/p>\n She barked out something, and sudden silence fell on the room as the combatants on both sides fell back from each other.<\/p>\n Her voice echoed down through the stillness, almost two voices – one, that of a beautiful singer, the other, a hissing rattle like a snake vibrating its tail in loose leaves. “What do you know of Mahar?”<\/p>\n If I could remember my mother, she would have reminded me of her.<\/p>\n “I served under him in the Cairn Jale, in the service of Bael Turath. This conflict between us is a mistake, there is no need for us to fight.”\u00a0Give me a little help here,<\/em> I whispered to Sybarron.\u00a0I could use your help with this.<\/em> As I said this, I felt a warm sense of approval and a cool sense of calm flood into me, from my throat down.<\/p>\n “You are Fellbane. We were ordered to hold this position and stop Fellbane. Why should I not have my forces finish you here?” She seemed almost confused that she was taking this moment to parlay with me.<\/p>\n “You can profit from forcing our retreat or killing us, but you and your master stand to gain far more by your choosing to speak with me.” As I said this, I slowly took my pack off and drew one of the last two bottles of wine from it. While I did, I had the passing thought that I might never actually get to drink this stuff I’d bought a couple months and six hundred years ago. I still had two more back in the keep, but great stars! I liked this wine! At this rate, I wouldn’t have any left for myself. “Please, give him this. I am Azrael of the Cairn Jale, and I was responsible for the victory in the Darl Knade campaign. When you give it to him, mention I would have sent along some Badham’s Beer, but I did not bring my cask on the journey. It is imperative you mention that. He’ll understand.”<\/p>\n She detached herself and slid down the wall to me. She gestured with the bow towards the corridor where the others were gasping their way out of the life-draining darkness. “Tell your companions to come forward. We will not harm them. Yet.”<\/p>\n I also noticed that the Fomorian had what looked like a leash of darkness around the necks of both Bingo and Sered, and both of them with slack-jawed expressions and had their weapons pointed at each other. As I watched, the Fomorian shook its hand, like a horseman flicking the reins of his mount. The two seemed to lose some of the glazing from their eyes, and walked slowly over towards me, Sered casting baleful glances over his shoulder and fingering at the phantom leash.<\/p>\n Althea and Dei were tending to Nix, putting out the fire. I called back, “Everyone, form up on me.” Dei folded Nix’s hands over his chest, and he began wrapping him up in a spare pack blanket. Althea stood and limped over to me, as did the rest. I again looked to her. “Please. Azrael of the Cairn Jale. I served beneath he and Balenor in the war against Arkhosia.”<\/p>\n The medusa took the bottle I’d offered, and slinging her bow, she stepped back. She withdrew a small box and flipped its lid open. Holding the bottle up next to the box, she muttered with it a few times before snapping the lid shut. Looking as though she’d been fed something particularly distasteful, she returned to where we were standing.<\/p>\n “Mahar will see you.” She signalled at one of the chimerae, the one we’d shot a few times. Its dragon head had just pulled an arrow out of its shoulder and spat it on the ground. She gracefully mounted the beast, gripping the reins that I had not noticed were attached to the central, ram’s head.<\/p>\n “I will lead you to Ihnbharan, and Mahar will meet you in the Coil.”<\/p>\n Not really knowing what location she was referring to, other than it got us to the city – and closer to Veyd – I thought this to be a good solution. “Okay.”<\/p>\n “You have at least piqued his curiosity. Do not take this to be a free invitation. I shall accompany you on the route there.” She looked exceedingly pissed off. I suspect she realized how close to victory she’d just come and was fuming internally over her choice to hear me out instead of simply finish us all off. She probably didn’t like the thought of traveling vulnerable with the rest of us, where we could simply attack her along the way.<\/p>\n I looked over to her. Walked over, took the little thumb-blade from my own harness and drew blood from the base of my thumb. I locked eyes with her while I made the short incantation. As I did I felt the power cycle a little wildly – I knew the effect the Feywild had would enforce the promise I was about to make. I got closer to her – closer than I’ve ever been to a chimera or a medusa, come to think of it. As I did I showed her the blood and the sigil I’d drawn on my palm with it. I offered her my hand and quietly spoke. “I swear to you, I am who I say, and we will confer to you the same respect you have shown us here. They will not turn on you during our journey to meet Mahar, and if they do I will defend you.” I felt\u00a0Sybarron<\/em> well a little bit of calm power into my speech.<\/p>\n She regarded me coolly. She suddenly grabbed my hand, her grip stronger than a man twice her size, and she pulled me close, close enough that I was worried one of her strands of hair might actually bite me. I felt the snap in my head as the oath took effect, the Feywild giving power to promises given. Oath given and accepted. I was bound to it now. She hissed into my ear: “If they do, they will not only die at the hands of\u00a0Shal Rava<\/em>, but your souls will be as forfeit as your flesh.”<\/p>\n I felt the shiver down my spine as she said this. Not knowing what to say in response to that – and as a military commander, historian, and even at times a musician, that is a rare state of being – I simply nodded.<\/p>\n She led the way down the chasm, past the troll still hiding against the steep incline of the passage.<\/p>\n We were on our way to Ihnbharann.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The entire group froze for a moment, looking down that corridor. Nothing happened. As I stood straight again, the breeze from outdoors rustling my hair, nothing continued to happen. After two or three more moments of this, the group began … Continue reading