{"id":218,"date":"2011-06-10T15:19:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T13:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?page_id=218"},"modified":"2011-06-10T16:39:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T14:39:44","slug":"47-venturing-on-alone","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/?page_id=218","title":{"rendered":"47 – Venturing on Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The group set out a little after dawn the following day, while I made my way to a dry goods store some fifty yards down the road from the Red Rooster.\u00a0 Before going on, I took a good dose of ash from the fireplace, and with the aid of a metal mirror and some water, darkened my horns considerably and gave my face a good dose of messiness.\u00a0 My clothing I covered with a long, thin travel cloak, enough to remain characteristic of the season while covering what might otherwise betray me.\u00a0 The cloak itself was already stained and a bit dirty, as I hadn\u2019t yet cleaned it after our return trip.\u00a0 I hung my rod from a leather strap around my shoulder, and Riftspar<\/em> remained sheathed, hilt-down, on my chest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On my way to the store, I pulled my cloak tight and retrieved two Manion Company sun-bars (gold bars, Manion uses them for exchange and to transfer sums of pay his employees at distant chapters of the business \u2013 they are worth about 100 Banner sluncy each) and a handful of miscellaneous silver coins from my store and slid them into my inner cloak-pocket.\u00a0 Buttoning it down tight, I entered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The smell of woodsmoke permeated the store, emanating from a large iron stove in the center of the room.\u00a0 Shelves of provisions, cooking materials, various mundane equipment, and enormous sacks dominated the wooden structure.\u00a0 The proprietor, a short human \u2013 considerably shorter than me \u2013 sat on a small stool behind the front counter, working through a sack of onions.\u00a0 He sorted them carefully, but with speed, tossing different sizes into baskets in front of the counter.\u00a0 I pulled my hood back and nodded at him when he noticed my presence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHelp you?\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t sound terribly sincere with his offer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I think so.\u00a0 Have you any horses, and perhaps a wagon?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGot both.\u00a0 Two wagons out back,\u201d he pointed to a rear door, \u201cyou can look \u2018em over and tell me which you want.\u00a0 Horses are at the stable of the Red Rooster, ask one of the stable hands to see them.\u201d\u00a0 I nodded as he said this.\u00a0 As soon as the last word was out of his mouth, he turned back to his onions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I went out back and checked the wagons out.\u00a0 One was completely unsuitable for my purpose, open-topped and short of wall, its wheels were not made for long travel.\u00a0 I would give it about a week before it collapsed beneath me.\u00a0 The second, on the other hand, was more to my liking.\u00a0 Covered with oiled canvas, proper flaps to tie down and keep out the weather, reinforced, and somewhat narrow with a wide wheel base.\u00a0 Its wheels were reinforced with iron as well, and the axles were straight and felt quite solid.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the stable, a stable boy showed me the three horses in question, and I selected a pair from them that seemed capable of drawing a loaded wagon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Returning to the store, I informed the produce-occupied manager of the shop of my choices.\u00a0 He was skeptical of my sincerity, until I produced one of the sun-bars and set it on his counter.\u00a0 He tapped it with a pointed hammer and, satisfied with the dent it made, diverted a considerably larger portion of his attention to me.\u00a0 I then picked out a selection of gear and food, which an assistant \u2013 who appeared rather quickly after a shout from the older man \u2013 loaded into the wagon.\u00a0 Satisfied that everything was set, I paid the man, who was following me around with a chalk-tablet.\u00a0 He took one of the bars and made change of a few lunas and stars for me.\u00a0 Looking back, I even think he made correct change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I walked the loaded wagon around to the side opposite the Rooster, and locked it in place there.\u00a0 Walking back to the Rooster, I walked up to the back of the Inn, and quietly passed through the building to retrieve my gear from my room.\u00a0 I also asked the innkeep to have my horse brought out, which was done in short order.\u00a0 I rode off, back towards the store, and once behind the store\u2019s building, secured my animal to the back of my new wagon.\u00a0 Tossing my pack and gear into the wagon behind the front seat, I set out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems my mild attempts at remaining unobtrusive paid off, for I was able to navigate the road through Banner without interference.\u00a0 A couple of times I was stopped by security patrols and questioned, but playing dumb and kind assuaged any suspicions they might have had.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Within a few hours I was on the road back to Vor Kragal.\u00a0 I found myself wishing I had forward scouts, as I would have with the Cairn Jale, but in the end I made do.\u00a0 Towards the evening, a slight rain set in \u2013 more of a drizzle, really \u2013 so before I lost daylight I pulled aside and got a small fire going.\u00a0 One advantage to being Shadrim, that\u2019s for sure:\u00a0 we are very good at starting fires.\u00a0 Once I\u2019d set the horses up with feed and made a small dose of porridge for myself, I laid myself out in the back of the wagon and slept.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The journey to get as far as the Haswith went relatively peacefully \u2013 I did get ambushed by a pair of rather hungry owlbears along the way.\u00a0 They were little trouble in the end, I turned one upon the other before they reached me, and while they fought one another I snipped and scissored until both had fallen.\u00a0 I did collect their paws, however, for possible sale along the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once I reached the Hastwith desert, though, things got a little more dicey.\u00a0 I was close to Tarsis, and given that there wasn\u2019t any food left there, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if the remaining population had begun to disperse in search of more.\u00a0\u00a0 I certainly didn\u2019t want to make any bets against Corfyr\u2019s ability to sniff out the living, so giving a wide berth to the City of a Thousand Tents was a high item on my priority list.\u00a0 I struck out along a side road, hoping to circle West and rejoin the major North-South artery after passing the remnants of that fallen city.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I almost made it clear.\u00a0 I had traveled most of a day to avoid the town, and found myself some distance away when evening began to fall.\u00a0 I debated the odds for a while as I drove further on, and decided to simply continue driving until dawn.\u00a0 The horses were a bit unsettled, and I certainly wasn\u2019t comfortable parking myself so close to what might be a horde of hungry dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps an hour after sunset I noticed the horses getting particularly skittish, and being a nervous sort myself took a moment to confirm that my rod and Riftspar <\/em>were where I needed them.\u00a0 I planted a pair of sunrods in sockets to either side of my seat, and their light cast deep black shadows behind the scrub and brush that I drove past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I soon found what it was that the horses were reacting to \u2013 I caught a distant whiff of rot and decay, exactly the thing I\u2019d hoped to avoid.\u00a0 Ghouls and other flesh-eating undead seem to surrender their sense of smell on taking their undead forms, as they almost invariably smell like a charnel house left to bake in the summer sun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the smell touched me, it almost felt like a physical contact, a wet, slimy feeling of something hungry on my skin.\u00a0 The disgusting feel of it almost made me vomit on the spot, but I was doing everything I could to hold myself together.\u00a0 I did not want to die in this \u2013 I admit to a bit of vanity here \u2013 inglorious position.\u00a0 I readied an attack and prepared to throw back my cloak at the first sign of trouble.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That sign wasn\u2019t long in coming, nor was it very subtle \u2013 with a shriek, a greyish humanoid form streaked from the brush and latched itself to the neck of one of the horses pulling my wagon.\u00a0 The horse screamed and bucked, causing the wagon to judder and creak with sounds I didn\u2019t have a deep fondness for.\u00a0 I saw others in the shadows, charging forward as well \u2013 coming after me and my horses.\u00a0 The horse successfully threw the ghoul that had been clinging to it, the wiry grey frame cartwheeling through the air over me.\u00a0 For good measure, I slapped it down with a fey charm that froze its eyes in its skull \u2013 it died before it struck the earth.\u00a0 (Can that truly be said of the undead?\u00a0 Is one \u2018killing\u2019 a ghoul when one fells it?)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As more began to boil up from the darkness, I invoked a shining halo of starlight around my head, and with a growl I snared the spirit of the nearest of the undead charging me.\u00a0 A spark of light shot from my halo to strike the creature full in the face, and I distinctly remember seeing the skin crisp and crack like old leather before the power of the curse I\u2019d laid upon it opened up a small channel to the Hells \u2013 which promptly ignited the thrashing creature with Infernal fire.\u00a0 More of them were closing, and one leaped up on the seat beside me, its claws raking across my armor and cutting into the back of my hand as it did.\u00a0 I immediately hooked into its soul with my curse, and decided how best to handle it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I used the momentum of its stroke to pull my hand towards it, sinking Riftspar <\/em>deep into its hollow chest.\u00a0 Forcing eldritch power into the stroke, I propelled it back and away from me, opening up just enough distance that I could quickly concentrate and send another mote of starlight into the creature\u2019s torso.\u00a0 Again the radiant energy took a horrible toll on the thing, even as the hungry fires of Hell licked about at the wound.\u00a0 The one I\u2019d struck a moment ago was blazing merrily, which I\u2019m sure gave the horses no reason for comfort.\u00a0 But then, they had problems of their own \u2013 each had two or three assailants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I felt the chill shivers pass from the cut into my blood, making my legs weak and wobbly \u2013 I knew I couldn\u2019t move.\u00a0 I tried desperately to shake off the effect, but could barely keep from sitting back down on the wagon bench.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While I took stock of all the action going on, another pair of ghouls dropped upon me from above (apparently they\u2019d climbed my wagon while I wasn\u2019t paying attention).\u00a0 They latched their claws into my armor and propelled me down hard against the wooden seat, the cushion of which had fallen as soon as I stood.\u00a0 I thought for a moment they had knocked my starlight halo askew, until I realized I was just seeing stars from the blow.\u00a0 One of them managed to bite me on the back of my neck, which elicited a most ignoble shout from me, and I immediately tore space to fall through a rift in Winter and reappear on the ground some thirty feet from the wagon.\u00a0 I fell into the dust with a bit of a sputter, and looked back at the wagon.\u00a0 The blast of cold caught both of my attackers, shattering one outright and freezing the other in place.\u00a0 I noticed almost casually that I\u2019d just barely missed the remaining living horse at the head of the wagon (the other, having fallen, had a cluster of ghouls upon it that I couldn\u2019t get an accurate count \u2013 probably four or five).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I picked a ghoul attacking my riding horse behind the wagon and with a wrenching psychic grip sent another mote of starlight to consume it.\u00a0 As the bright light of infernal fire slathered itself across the grotesquely distorted features, the light of the flames illuminated the creature adjacent to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That one, taller than the others, turned to face me.\u00a0 It seemed to be contemplating me as it stood there, staring at me through the darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That <\/em>was creepy.\u00a0 Dray might find notes in a book a little strange, but being stared down by a ghoul?\u00a0 Hands down, that\u2019s worse.\u00a0 Just watching it drove me up to my feet, and instinctively I shrugged off the tingling sensation plaguing me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The creature was probably seven feet tall if it was an inch and it had a lolling, ropy pink tongue at least half that length hanging from its mouth.\u00a0 Grey lesions covered its tongue, and its mouth was filled with needle-like teeth reminiscent of a pike-fish.\u00a0 Its skin was black as night and reflected light like oiled leather, its eyes glimmering like emeralds backlit by some strange fire.\u00a0 Unlike the others, its head bore no hair \u2013 not even the scraggly bits that remained from the time when these creatures might have called themselves genuinely alive.\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That black thing screamed like an eagle, and started loping towards me faster than I imagine most horses can gallop.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit it freely \u2013 seeing that, I screamed a little too.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I\u2019m a brave man, and proud of myself in a fight.\u00a0 Noble scion of Ille Macreane, and a war hero of Bael Turath.\u00a0 I\u2019ve led men into battle and faced death so many times I\u2019ve lost count.\u00a0 I\u2019ve remained calm and collected not a yard from a dragon that could have killed me with a sneeze, and on whose ground I was severely trespassing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I practically shit myself when that thing started chasing me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I reflexively took hold of its soul \u2013 a cold, slithering thing, it felt to my mind \u2013 and bolted a mote of blue light from my halo at it, and then ran as fast as I could back towards the horse that would have been pulling my wagon.\u00a0 I heard it scream again \u2013 this time, at least, had a little pain in it \u2013 but I was too busy running to have a look.\u00a0 I even heard the blast of ice behind me as my flames went out, but I wasn\u2019t about to spend this time gloating.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I shouted as I ran, which attracted at least the attention of the undead who were still trying to kill my second wagon-horse.\u00a0 (Why weren\u2019t they all eating the one they\u2019d already dropped?\u00a0 Greedy bastards.)\u00a0 I\u2019m not quite sure why I did, but in the end I realized I had a plan, just that my brain didn\u2019t let me know what it was until I\u2019d already committed.\u00a0 Those ghouls broke off from the horse \u2013 who had been doing a good job threatening with his hooves, though the fight had done a real number on the harness equipment \u2013 and moved to intercept me.\u00a0 I flicked starlight at one of the three, which promptly incinerated under the radiant and hellfire assault, and took a severe gamble \u2013 I ran right between the other two and leaped over the crowd eating my downed horse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to say everything went gracefully and with a wonderful arc of success, but, well, gymnastics was never my forte.\u00a0 I crashed through the burning ashes between the two ghouls approaching me (nice dramatic touch, I thought), and as I was vaulting up in the air, one of them hooked a claw on my boot.\u00a0 This had the effect of lowering my clearance, and rather than sail cleanly over the horse-carcass and the raiding ghouls around it, I instead collided with the rear of a feeding ghoul and tumbled over him to come to rest on the opposite side of the dead horse.\u00a0 With six or eight pissed-off ghouls all closing on me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And did I mention the one chasing me?\u00a0 Oh yes, he was there too, having just reached the party.\u00a0 Not a fun day to be me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I practically passed out, the stench of them was so overwhelming.\u00a0 As the normal ghouls overcame their distraction of the big pile of blood and meat next to me, and came to focus directly on me, that big black one \u2013 still smouldering with flames from where I\u2019d cooked it a bit with my starfire and hellfire curses \u2013 closed in on me.\u00a0 He threw an interposing ghoul aside like a barman tosses a towel, that big long tongue whipping about in a frenzy of anger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when I ripped my way through Taer Dian Loresh.\u00a0 I rolled to my feet facing that beast, and muttered, \u201cSay hello to my patron, prick!\u201d while gesturing at the ground beneath me.\u00a0 With a gentle shuff<\/em>, every ghoul around me vanished into the air.\u00a0 I jogged forward, away from the wagon again, about twenty steps before turning to look back.\u00a0 Most of the ghouls reappeared \u2013 I think one of them got stuck in the land of Waking Nightmare \u2013 and all but the black one promptly fell over dead.\u00a0 Whether the preternatural cold of Shan Doresh\u2019s domain killed them or the psychic shock of the land of nightmare, I haven\u2019t the foggiest clue.\u00a0 What I do know is that every normal ghoul with the exception of the one that the big fellow threw out of the way expired on the spot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Frost covered the huge one\u2019s form, and I could see it struggling to get its feet moving as it turned to face me.\u00a0 Its one remaining ally was charging me from where it had been thrown, and I flicked radiant light and a twisting curse at it to catch it before it reached me.\u00a0 It was in ashes mid-step, falling like so much burnt wood to the ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, blood-bag, just you and me now.\u00a0 Time for your lesson,\u201d I suddenly felt a lot more compelling, knowing we were one-on-one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The frost had evaporated away from its form now, and its speed accelerated accordingly.\u00a0 Damn<\/em>, but that thing was fast.\u00a0 I found my hand reaching through the now-familiar ice-drifts of Levistus, and sprayed this enormous abyssal ghoul with razor-edged shards at point-blank range.\u00a0 Again, frost enveloped it, freezing it in place while black ichor gouted from some particularly vulnerable channel.\u00a0 Almost as an afterthought I shot a tiny flicker of starlight into it, which both caused it a nice blistering welt on its arm as well as reigniting the infernal flames that had dissipated a few moments before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I backed away, watching, the flames went out \u2013 and I heard the sharp crack <\/em>of fracturing ice as the Stygian frosts snapped shut on the ghoul where the flames had been.\u00a0 Jagged shards of frost and ice extended themselves from the already-frosted wounds, like the teeth of a bear trap.\u00a0 The ghoul screamed again, but this time in frustration and pain, and I wasn\u2019t quite so frightened now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It freed itself again, and as it approached I set to an elusive dance with it.\u00a0 I slipped another gout of starlight into it, and then followed with a corrosive fey strike that clouds the mind of the creature hit \u2013 I effectively became invisible to the terrible thing.\u00a0 I then used Riftspar<\/em> to augment a quick teleport to a point behind and to the right of the ghoul.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It had lost me, and it knew it.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, it probably realized I would kill it.\u00a0 Ghouls of the normal variety aren\u2019t incredibly dumb, and this one was far from normal.\u00a0 I could keep up the attacks like this all night, and without someone to spot me, it had little or no hope of finding me to catch me for a little punishment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And that is how it ended \u2013 eventually the ghoul recognized the fight was over, and tried to run at one point.\u00a0 But I wore him down, and every moment ground away more of its unnatural\u00a0 llife to my spells and flames.\u00a0 Eventually it dropped, flames growing furiously around its wounds, and I moved to inspect the body.\u00a0 It had a leather harness of a model similar to my own (though not enchanted) strapped to it, with a sword sheathed at its side.\u00a0 I cut both free \u2013 also taking a small pouch from it \u2013 and after thinking about it for a few moments, took the creature\u2019s head as well.\u00a0 I tied it into an oil-cloth sack to keep the stench down, and returned to the wagon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took me twenty minutes to calm the horses enough to handle them, but once I had, I cut the dead one loose and re-harnessed my riding horse alongside him.\u00a0 As soon as that was done, I moved that wagon at the best speed I thought I could manage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t felt so relieved at the sight of dawn since that morning, and I\u2019ve discovered a deep appreciation for sunlight since then.\u00a0 In morning I set up a short camp and tended the animals, and inspected the sword I\u2019d taken.\u00a0 Orium, it had been \u2013 the copper-colored metal gleamed in the sunlight where I held it up, and I definitely picked up a sense of something enchanted in it, though I couldn\u2019t say immediately what.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With three weeks still to go, I re-strung the horses to the wagon and set out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The group set out a little after dawn the following day, while I made my way to a dry goods store some fifty yards down the road from the Red Rooster.\u00a0 Before going on, I took a good dose of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":73,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-218","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions\/238"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borkedcode.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}