Hi all,
Last time you left the strange corpse that Ahappi/Sailor left behind, and wandered through more badlands trying to find a sign of where the canyon might be.
You passed the remnant of a ruin; just the outline of an old structure; and saw a figure crouched therein, kneeling with its back to you. It was hazy, rotting and encrusted with filth. You approached, hailing it, and finally it turned around as you drew close. It only turned its upper torso, twisting its abdomen around in a sickening corkscrew as it beheld you– and its eyes soon locked on Ciddar!
It was drawing Vadeli, Mastery, Illusion, Disorder and Death runes in the dirt with a stick. Again and again, wiping them out each time and starting anew. But it stopped when it saw Ciddar. Ciddar/Veteran recognized it as Saint Tutrys…
An argument ensued amongst the questers: most suggested that “the Veteran” should give the sword to the apparition, as it may be an ally (as the quest myth suggested you should be finding). But Ciddar, seeming to be overcome with the same love of his sword as the revenant was, was very reluctant. Ahappi/Sailor walked off when he saw that Ciddar was not heeding his words– Ciddar/Veteran was getting ideas in his head that on this quest, he served only the family (at best) and not his ship's master. Or so he rationalized his decision to keep the sword. The thing could not speak but could hiss, rasp and gesture.
However, urged on by Boamund and others, Ciddar did relent and let the thing touch the sword with hands clasped in a Malkioni Law rune prayer, and it grabbed the Tear's blade, sending a humming energy through it into Ciddar's arm (he gained a blessing I will tell Nathan). Horridly, it would not then let go of the blade, and wrenched it from Ciddar's hands, slicing its own gnarled hands in the process. But Boamund moved quickly and grabbed the hilt, taking the sword back and returning it to a relieved Ciddar.
You started leaving the treacherous saint's body behind as Ciddar's mind reeled with realizations from his connection with the saint— this saint was a traitor! It had done something awful to betray the other saints, leading to their demise and its enslavement: by Vadeli? The body and sword had been found in the Vadeli tower originally (by Ahappi), in the same kneeling pose, so this all fit. Ciddar seethed with disdain, pity and disgust- and hatred- for the perfidious St Tutrys!
The thing responded to his scorn with increasingly violent shaking of its head in a silent “no”, then its head flew off, bouncing across the hardpan soil and knocking into Ciddar, who failed to step aside! That hideous event was enough for the fragile mind of Ciddar. With all the Vadeli hints afoot and this greedy saint and such, combined with the undead body of his “benefactor”, he lost his mind and ran off screaming. Soon Boamund caught up with him and calmed him down with wise words. And by then Maugis had caught up with Ahappi, so soon the party was reunited.
But Ciddar's disloyalty to his “captain” (albeit not so on the quest) has torn a rift within the group. Eventually Cyroosta and others bade them silence their feud, although Ciddar still muttered about being owed an apology, and the feud still simmered. You trudged onward.
You next heard drumming and saw the same Arkati trolls loping across the landscape, coming to you with jolly, hoomanz-mocking songs and dance, which you soon joined in by invitation. They seemed happy to be crossing your paths again on your two quests, and as you joined their celebration their leader Arkat Kingtroll made “smalltalk” about your quest and theirs (to get vengeance on demons that killed their Uz brother, now that they'd laid his tortured soul to rest). They did not understand why you'd leave “Wonderhome” (their name for underworld) for the “Hurtplace” (surface realm) but tallied that off to hooman strangeness.
Soon they surreptitiously invited/challenged/hinted your involvement in a demon hunt contest, which involved finding and following demon tracks, sneaking up on the demon(s), and capturing the demon for the Uz to ritually devour to gain magic benefits. The race was on- the Uz were confident they'd beat you to the finish!
But the Uz were wrong. Right away Boamund spotted and followed good demonic hooved tracks into rougher terrain, and you ran across to the shadow of a great lookout promontory atop which a demonic figure was silhouetted (the Uz had warned you the demons had scouts). Ahappi/Sailor crested the slope first, and he rushed up to the demon and stuck it in the back with his spear, knocking it flat.
The ugly, smog-spewing, winged, horse-skull-headed(!) demon (with exotic bow) turned out to be a cowardly, lowly servant of “the Great Master”, and it spilled the beans to you as much as it could (it was not very well informed) before the Uz arrived. Its master was taking captives into the Shrieking Cells and turning them into undead for its evil purposes (to invade the surface world? Did that mean Giraine?), and summoning demons to help it.
So that was what was at stake: the Baronet's captive body might be made undead if your quest failed! (There was no sign of Malia or disease- it was clear that on your quest, the necromantic powers were playing that role but on their own terms) The Uz finally caught up with you, their leader blessed Ahappi's left spear arm with a magic “Smite Dem Demonz” blessing, and the trolls leapt on the demon with relish, attended by its pleading screams to you for freedom or mercy. You left it behind to its fate.
The demon had pointed down into a dark canyon and said your quest led there, to the Canyon of Pendulous Repentance, so you went that way. In a valley therein, you found a battlefield where countless knights(?) and demons/undead lay slain. One man walked amongst the carnage, head hung low in sadness/shame. He could not speak, but was a leader of the warriors– and he turned out to be the Baronet's father, Darilios Shaven, who had died in battle in Seshnela. It seemed here he was carrying on his work by leading those in the afterlife to fight against evil to save his son, but he could not speak of it- his tongue was gone, eaten by worms… (a recurrent pattern!)
There were awkward meetings between Darilios and Boamund, and then a touching meeting of Darilios (who did not recognize the Wise Woman) and Cyroosta, who held back her feelings but was developing a cunning plan…
Darilios explained through gestures and expression that he'd take you to the Shrieking Cells in the Canyon, and so he did. You wound your way through a series of narrowing gulleys until you came to a dark, foreboding place where bits of bodies hung off the crags– the Canyon at last! And in there Darilios pointed to a black cleft in the rocky walls: the Shrieking Cells lay therein. But for some reason he could not enter; it was your quest after all, not his, you reasoned. You left the tragic shade behind.
Inside, the narrow, black space was thronged with bodies suspended by bloody rags and dark magic threads. Maugis lit a magic spell and you could see them stretching to the ceiling, and some still struggled in their bonds. As you pressed deeper, some of them began dropping out of their bonds like overripe fruit, and they proved to be menacing captives-turned-zombies, pushing toward you in a circling horde!
© Copyright - 2000-2024 - John Hutchinson, Tim Evans, Pete Nash, Colin Driver and Gordon Alford