The shrine is a question that would have to wait for later. No one still lived that knew the whole truth of the matter, save the gods, and they weren't likely to reveal such information upon demand. In the meantime, they had more tasks to look into in this part of the region. More straightforward rumors of unwise ruins explorers and bandits. And that was something that both needed attention and which they could attend to right now. So, after a rest in the hollow remnants of Conyberry, they headed south to Old Owl Well.
Caress was not much of a student of history, but this well was one that turned up rather frequently in tales of battles both ancient and rather closer to the current time. She wasn't sure why the place was a focus of conflict so often, but it was, and that history apparently went all the way back to the days of the Netherese and their empire of floating cities and magocratic tyranny. The Netherese had made enough of a headache of themselves in recent history, it would be unfortunate if anybody decided to try to renew their efforts to conquer and oppress the Realms.
As they approached the tower, the spell of corpseflesh wafted down from the ruins. Caress and Mythram split in two different directions, moving stealthily along the walls before Ravyn's imp flitted invisibly forward to scout out the situation. Already Caress had a line of sight on a handful of zombies shambling at some task visible through breaks in the crumbling stone walls. Ravyn pantomimed some strange hand signals that Caress took to be a count and something about a hat or hair? The wiggly hands and gestures toward Lyra and raising her arcane focus seemed to indicate that the person with the hat? hair? was some sort of spell caster. Caress nodded and readied her whip and shield for the signal to be given.
 |
| Zombies by Moonlight |
The signal was the descent of shimmering silver striking down from the sky onto the tent that presumably held the caster. Immediately, the yuan-ti courtesan rushed forward to the entrance of the tower, ignoring the strangled cries of pain that erupted from the tent. Once there, she found a small mob of zombies wielding shovels and picks interrupted their work and slowly turned to face Caress. Behind her, a bald man with a red robe tore out of the tent into the courtyard where his troubles were cut short by an arrow that Mythram had been holding ready.
As the zombies pressed forward they battered against Caress's shield as her allies positioned themselves behind her. The blinding pillar of moonlight shifted from the tent behind before parting the sky above and dropping down into the mass of the zombies just in front of her. Lashing out with her Sharess-blessed whip, she struck into one of the zombies, whittling them down as the moonlight burned down into them. The sheer press of dead zombies battered at her and she felt scales dislodged and flesh bruised as rotten, cracked nails tore at her, trying to get past her shield and scale mail.
As the last of the mob fell to the barrage of moonlight, blessed weapons, arrows, and eldritch force, Caress stepped back away to catch her breath and tend to her injuries. In the meantime, the others scanned the site, finding some documents that had been untouched by the moonlight as well as an enchanted ring that reportedly carried some form of protective enchantment. The mage was a Red Wizard of Thay, making the entire thing that much more distasteful and suspect, but whatever the man might have been here to do, they weren't going to be able to get any answers from him now. Hopefully, this wasn't something that would come back to haunt them in the future.
This left just the bandits to attend to down at Wyvern Tor. They traveled a little ways off and camped for the night. Mythram later reported that an orc hunting party passed in the night, but otherwise everything passed calmly and the hunting party never found them, or at least decided the party wasn't worth disturbing.
The next day, they approached a cave at the foot of the cliffside at Wyvern Tor and found a hobgoblin angrily speaking to a disinterested orc watchman.
"You must let me in to see Brughor Axe-Biter. You simpleton bandits should make haste to join the Black Spider and ally yourself with King Grol's aims. King Grol who has placed a bounty on the adventurers that will almost certainly be making their way to this place even now. Do you think that your depredations have gone unnoticed?"
It was at this point that Mythram's arrow lodged itself into the watchman's face. Now the hobgoblin turned to face them, growing quiet and putting his hands forward in a sign of surrender. Caress set her whip onto her belt as she stepped forward to tie the man up as deftly as the party had grown used to.
"You're the one who carries the bounty!" Targor said as he saw Lyra step forward.
"Bounty of 25 Gold," Mythram said, reading a scrap of parchment. "With a rather poorly drawn likeness of you Lyra."
"Why specifically, does she have a bounty?" Caress asked, smiling as Yuan-Ti as it was possible for her to do so.
The hobgoblin hesitated a moment before answering. "Presumably because she carries the Glassstaff."
"That seems a rather poor bounty for something like the Glasstaff," Lyra noted. "Your average mercenary would be more likely to sell it off than turn it in for the price you're offering."
"Hmph. You underestimate the value of getting a good reputation with King Grol and the Black Spider."
"So, you work for this Black Spider, then?" Ravyn asked.
"Bah, I am Targor the Blood-Sword, successor to King Grol. I'm far more than some petty mercenary." Almost immediately the hobgoblin's expression revealed that he had regretted his words and had given away too much information.
Raven's familiar slipped invisibly into the cave, bringing word of more bandits and Mythram stepped away from the interrogations as she turned toward the cave and started to look into the cave. She hit the cave mouth just at the wrong moment as an orc cook turned to see her silhouetted against the night sky and then the alarm was given.
Caress finished up securing Targor and shoved him to the ground as she grabbed her whip and jumped to the mouth of the cave a moment before Lyra's chanting voice called down a new shaft of moonlight upon the head of the orcs within. Caress's chanting joined the Selunite sorceress's as she called upon Sharess's blessing to boost the efforts of Mythram, Ravyn, and herself. The Sharan, meanwhile pulled back from the entrance to let Caress take the mouth.
Confident that she could handle a few orc bandits, the yuan-ti paladin was suddenly a bit less confident as an ogre charged through the moonlight, barely noticing the singing radiance to come into the cave and start winding up the greatclub to smash down upon Caress. From behind her, Ravyn's voice took on an eerie tone as she spoke a joke of questionable humor, but the nature of the joke mattered little as the magic behind it drilled heavily into the ogre's mind and set a barrage of hideous laughter that sent the ogre tumbling to the ground.
 |
| King Laugh will not be denied |
"Try not to hurt him if you can avoid it!" Ravyn called out. "It'll break the spell!"
"Orc or Targo?" Mythram called out.
"Targo." Caress returned, interested in keeping the fight as one-fronted as possible.
Mythram nodded and darted over to pound her the pommel of her shortsword into Targo's face, who responded by badly pretending to be unconscious. More orcs appeared hesitating at the barrier of the moonbeam which was searing into the flesh of the orc cook, only to have fragments of the sacred flame peel off and lash into their mortal flesh. The Eladrin then stepped forward and vanished into a burst of dust and moonlight, leaving the ogre's laughter to suddenly take on a terrified urgency.
Behind them, an especially burly orc appeared and grumbled, picking up a box and hurling it at the ogre. The ogre's laughter hesistated a moment before it reasserted itself fully, leaving the orc to curse the situation. Seeing what was coming, Caress lashed out with her blessed whip, striking the ogre and tensing as the pain drove the ogre to try the bonds of the spell again and fail again. When another orc shoved through the moonlight and kicked the giantkin, however, that did the trick and the beast reared up with his greatclub to smash into Caress... only for the ogre to glance toward Lyra and a flicker of panic sent the club veering aside and missing Caress.
A moment later came yet another joke and the laughter took hold of the ogre yet again. From behind the great laughing beast, orcs tossed javelins trying to strike the sorceress who dodged the first strike and used the claimed Glasstaff to block the remaining two from striking her by raising a crystalline dome of force.
The familiar continued to search the cave for more enemies and anything useful, Ravyn sending her own vision into the creature to guide it, but could find very little of use. Lyra stepped forward and unleashed a cascade of silvery fire, killing the orc cook and searing the ogre, who continued to laugh. She considered fey stepping away but choose to stay where she was for the moment, and then the orc warlord, presumably Brughor, tried and failed again to snap the ogre out of his enchanted laughter.
Caress's whip whirled twice over her head before lashing out with a golden smiting light that burned into the ogre's very spirit, but he giantkin held on to life, even as the joke refused to release it. An orc then scrambled past the yuan-ti only to make a horribly incompetent attempt to strike Lyra with the great axe. The next two orcs similarly tried to leap over the ogre's body, but were shoved off by Caress. Behind the paladin, Mythram lashed out with her blades, bringing the orc in their back ranks to regret his life choices.
"Hey, you, with the boxes! Try one of these!" Lyra called out, a flash of silver erupting from her eyes.
Similarly arcane sparks erupted from within Brughor's skull and he clutched at his head, howling in pain and shock. In that moment, all his cunning plans were torn asunder and he could only focus on the simplest of actions. He was only barely aware that the source of his psychic torment had teleported away from the front lines.
Caress glanced over her shoulder to see Lyra escaping the battle and the orc standing immediately behind her and lashed out with her whip again, a stray fragment of Sharess's radiance dislodged from the whip as Caress focused the bulk of its attention forward. This fragment slipped into the rear orc's mouth and seared the bandit's skull from the inside out, overcharging the soul such that the very eyes burned out like a charred cathedral. And then he slumped forward as the bulk of the smite slammed down into the ogre, which still stubbornly clung to life.
An eldritch blast lashed out from Ravyn, striking hard and accurately into Brughor as the orc still struggled with the psionic assault. Another orc slipped over the laughing ogre and brought his axe down into Mythram as his partner panicked and looked about for a spare Javelin. Gritting her teeth, Mythram lashed out with her shortsword, striking the orc deeply and watching as the life left the bandit's eyes.
Ahead, the whip cracked again, and the ogre's laughter ended in a choking death rattle as the Yuan-ti cracked her whip to clear the blood from its blessed length and stood straight in the entrance, casually eyeing the remaining bandits, Brughor and one other orc. And then an eldritch blast cut over her shoulder, messily imploding Brughor's rib cage and splattering him across the cave. At which point the remaining orc dropped his weapons and backed away, hands empty.
"I do believe we've won." Ravyn said.
Caress stepped forward to tie up the orc in what was possibly the most disturbingly comfortable way he'd ever been tied up before.
"You... you can let me go. I'll go into exile. You'll never see me again."
The party discussed it a moment, before agreeing to let the orc leave... once they'd had a chance to recover. But as for Targor... Targor was directly related to their kidnapped employer. He'd be coming with them to Phandalin.
No comments:
Post a Comment