Fire and Water

The last few days travel pass uneventfully and the Party finally get to within sight of the doubly-dead; Zephir’s oasis. It’s withered and browned a fair bit since they were first here but, considering it contains their way back home to Fissa, it’s still a very welcome sight.

Scattered prone around the outer periphery are several tall, multi-limbed bodies though. Several dead, tall, multi-limbed bodies. The corpses of about a score of the nomadic, insectoid Tri-Kreen. The skilled Liga Bur initially suspects another zombie trap but, after ‘careful’ inspection with a ten foot pole, he’s relieved to find them merely mundanely dead. Probably innocent desert travellers exploiting the free water supply here and killed needlessly and mercilessly by Sir Briefadel, his Mother and the dark horse they rode in on.

Scouting ahead and grateful to find no opposition guarding the inner oasis, Liga Bur cautiously approaches the top of the central stone well. Once there though, the fiery Dijonn on realising what’s happening, suddenly flares wildly atop his torch perch.

“Oh No, Oh No, Oh No! Please Master, don’t put me down the well! Leave me here; I can guard the oasis for you. I can easily survive on just the dead, dried out bushes and trees. I promise I won’t burn the living green stuff!”

Rifkin’s slightly-almond eyes also flair, but far more subtly as he hears Dijonn’s terrified hisses and crackles. Why hadn’t he thought about this before now? There’s no way that the flame-bodied Dijonn could survive for even a second underwater and there’s no way to protect him from it for anything more than a few moments.

Arowe immediately comes to the little elementals defence and Liga Bur has no interest in extinguishing his spluttering servant. The canny Halfling had noticed that Dijonn always shrank to his smallest, unnoticeable flame whenever Ghostly Pardrik was on guard or when the Hag had visited. The fire elemental was definitely hiding something, but what?

Still, whatever that ‘what’ is, it’s no reason to kill him. The rough Halfling had begun to question his own cynicism of late. He hadn’t trusted Fortu, Arowe or Rifkin when he’d first met them on the road to Scar Borough, and now he’d trust them with his life. He had been trusting them to protect him from the protracted attacks from the Hag and they’d not let him down. Considering his past losses, it’s hard to have faith in people but perhaps it’s time to change that mindset. Perhaps he could have faith in something bigger than himself. Something deeper. Perhaps he should choose to believe that Henshaw and Doberman weren’t secretly plotting against him… Barbella would be more of a stretch though.

After making Dijonn swear on his favourite fire gods not to burn down the entire oasis, Liga Bur frees the tiny elemental by gently transferring it from his torch to a dried out bush on the dead outskirts of deader Zephir’s oasis garden.

Immediately growing larger, as he consumes the dry and brittle bush, Dijonn smirks as he wavers the Party goodbye.

“Good luck skin-wearers!.”

Fright for the Knight

 

After Doberman barrels into the surprisingly shocked Sir Briefadel and his voluptuous, dark-eyed mother, battle is joined. The open mouth shaped observation platform is small though; too small to allow easy access and Hetzabah and Sir Briefadel exploit that fact, refusing to get drawn away from the partial safety of the toothy edge, leaving no opportunity for flanking or double-teaming. The Party’s numbers do give them the edge though, enabling Liga Bur and Barbella to race back into the tower and out onto Dulcetta’s outstretched hands. Eventually the evil Mother and Son duo are forced to jump to the relative safety of the darkness below but not before Arowe, Liga Bur and Barbella get their long (and cross) bow shots in to surprisingly good, near fatal effect.

The ‘Night’ Watchmen

The ghost of the young Cottisonian soldier; Pardrik sways easily, as he shimmers in the bright sunlight. His form and features have become clearer somehow, after each completed guard duty. More defined and in focus after each re-emergence, even though his spirit form had been shredded, defeated and dismissed several times by the ethereal but still vicious Hag and her phantom steed. Regardless of that though, he’d always reformed by the next shift. Despite their pitiful existence, ghosts are notoriously hard to actually ‘kill’ again. 

It’s the end of his and Arowe’s seventh eight-hour guard duty, and Pardrik notices that his Elven partner seems finally, to have calmed down. The ghost hovers over the still sleeping Halfling, but thanks to the clever positioning of his bones, he’d been able to move freely around the marquee and act as an early, though imminent, warning system for all his new friends. Now though, a feeling of anxiety runs through him. Like his ghostly form, his mind had become less clouded after each successfully completed shift, and now he wonders if the Halfling; Liga Bur was correct in his assumption about fulfilling his previously failed duty. He was cursed on the orders of Lord Urdurel to exist forever, tortured by the unending sight of the young Lady Lamenta’s dying moments. A testimony to his failure to protect her. 

Now though, after serving those seven nights of duty, that he’d failed to give her, was his curse truly over? The last three days had been spent just quietly standing, as the Hag and her badly injured Nightmare steed hadn’t reappeared.

As if in answer to his silent thoughts, a beam of bluish light, despite the natural brightness around him, somehow seems to illuminate him from above and he feels a pull upward.

“My friend! It appears you were right and, in protecting you, my curse has been lifted. I didn’t dare believe it but, after a century of suffering, I’ve served my penance and can finally return to the afterlife I deserved.”

Liga Bur, who’d suspected as much, quickly summons his teammates to say goodbye to their insubstantial ally. Pardrik takes the opportunity to thank them all in turn but deliberately finishes on Arowe.

“It is you, that I’ve spent the most time with over this last week. The magical hand you possess, your sharp Elven senses and your uncanny trancing ability have made you the ideal partner. While I stood guard on the ethereal plane, you guarded the material one. Now though, from now on, I’m afraid you must guard alone.”

The ghostly soldier instructs Arowe to lay the ornate, magical rapier he’d gotten from Magritte on the warm sand before placing his own immaterial longsword overtop it. The two swords exist in the same space for a moment before the spirit sword fades from existence, leaving only Arowe’s rapier behind. It looks different though in some way. It’s magical glow has turned from an orangey gold to a blueish silver and the blade, despite the warm sand, is unnaturally cool to the touch.

As Arowe turns, he sees that Pardrik too is fading, but rather than a feeling of sadness, now that his anger is no longer magnified by the Oath-bow, he shares the smiling teenager’s joy.

Arowe’s bejewelled +2 Rapier (that he was given by Magritte in exchange for his sinisterly intelligent one) has now been further enhanced by the parting gift of the ghost; Pardrik and now has a +3 bonus on attack and damage as well as having the ‘Ghost touch’ feature! 

It Creeps and Leaps

Because the tower narrows as is rises, the acidic, green slime fills more and more of the available floor space. If it makes it all the way to the top level, it’ll be utterly unavoidable! 

Bottle Bottom - Bottle Neck

 

Thankfully, due to the too small access point, the flapping, glass abdomened, mechanical bat/gnat creatures can only get through the overhead hatch one at a time. Despite that though, the small, overcrowded, multi-exited chamber is soon full of the terrifying, needle-nosed, clickity-clackity, blood-siphoning creatures!

Sling to Win

Racing far ahead, ironically, only the overly cautious Henshaw and ‘risk averse’ Rifkin arrive in time to see clever Arowe use his wits and a single, simple sling-stone to overcome the rapidly spinning, sonic reflecting, circular, anti-arrow cage.

It Glides and Slides

Oozing its way along and ascending floor after floor, the acidic, green Blob finds itself on the labyrinth level of Dulcetta’s tower. The illusionary temptations and portcullis-like gate traps mean nothing to the mindless, amorphous creature though, and all the maze does is slow the gelatinous slime down just a little further.

Death Wish

Unimpressed by the impotent threats of the ghostly guard/prisoner Pardrik or the pitiful statues of the teenage Lady Lamenta surrounding him, Fortu instead examines the solid cold-iron door and its full sized representation of, who can only be, the wide stanced, hands-on-hips, eye-patch wearing Lord Urdurel.

I'm not crying, its smoky in here.

 As Fortu studies the markings made by the deliberate but dour Liga Bur, still struggling to tell the difference between walking tracks and running, he hears the scratching of quill to paper. He looks across to the bard; Rifkin had taken to helping Fortu with his letters, so hoping for a break from the stern guidance of the expert tracker, Fortu moves over to the bard.

"What ya writing Riffers"

As Rifkin explains the contents of the letter Fortu places a large but gentle hand on his shoulder.

"ah Riffers, I think you may be the best of us".

Alas poor Grimcrack

Sitting cross-legged in the tent, Rifkin takes out the small, cloth-wrapped gnomish skull from his satchel, places it beside him and re-leafs through the tattered remnants of Grimcrack’s worn, torn and now spineless diary. He’s not sure what motivated him to take it while he was gathering up the small knight’s magical equipment. Perhaps the injustice of his death or the unsatisfactory ending of his failed quest. Whatever the reason though, the empathetic Rifkin feels the physically tangible weight of grief, push down on his sentimental heart.

The Thin-Needle family had been right about the dangers of keeping the demonic Hag imprisoned rather than executing it. Poor Grimcrack had lost his life in his attempt to rectify his people’s mistake and his statesman Father had lost a beloved son.

Although, the Gnome had died nearly fifty years ago… or possibly a hundred (depending on whichever world’s timespan you consider) but Gnomes are long lived. Not as long as Elves perhaps but still, Baron Gewgore Thin-Needle is most probably still alive, with only the accursed feeling of unknowing loss. Forever assuming the worst but never actually having the ‘comfort’ of being certain. A forlorn sort of hope that never truly lets you rest.

Rummaging deeper into his leather satchel, Rifkin pulls out a few sheets of paper, one of his small, magical golden feather tokens, his stylus and a small bottle of black ink before beginning to write…

Curvaceous Counter Measures

The beautiful and nearly naked Hetzabah returns astride her flying mount, after her third failed ethereal assault on the Halfling tracker; Liga Bur.

On her arrival and on his second attempt (due to his heavy armour interfering with his somatic gestures) Sir Briefadel manages to conjure up ‘Leomund’s tiny hut’ as a resting place and defence from the unrelenting suns. His sour expression rigid, as he chides his bizarrely younger-than-him Mother.

“We’ve been travelling for four days now and we’re almost at the oasis portal but those adventurers are still alive and still on our trail”

Hetzabah rubs her precious ruby-heart talisman in annoyance, before responding to her son’s partially unspoken barb.

“They’ve prepared and defended the Dark Star Halfling tracker well. Too well, thanks to that annoying ghost guard and the sleepless Elf, for me to easily circumvent their tactics. I’ll need to do something different next time. Something more direct; more … physical.”

Sir Briefadel smiles.

“You plan to actually kill them this time? Count me in!”

His Mother surprises him with her sharp response though.

“Well count yourself right out again boy. While the pretty Elf has selected you as his Oathbow target, you’re simply too vulnerable to his arrows. He very nearly succeeded in killing you last time you met and you’re not even fully healed up from those wounds yet!”

The armoured aristocrat’s smile immediately reverses into a scowl.

“This won’t do! There has to be something that can protect me from that accursed Elven bow!”

The outrageously curvy; Hetzabah runs her long fingernails through her even longer, glossy, black hair and giggles.

“Don’t you see? If you don’t come with us this time, the Elf will effectively have completely hamstrung himself. In the seven days after he’s selected you as his Oathbow target, unless he has cold-iron tipped arrows, his effectively disenchanted, disinterested bow won’t be able to harm me at all!”

Sir Briefadel’s smile returns.

“Won’t the Elf realise, once his arrows fail to injure you?”

Hetzabah laughs manically and keeps on laughing.

“Foolish man-child; you’ve got much to learn! Mortals see me how I choose them to see me. Surely the thousand tiny, false flesh wounds I carried when we battled the adventurers at the zenith of the tower would have taught you that? I’ll alter my form to convince him that each arrow he fires, although perhaps a fraction diminished, does indeed hurt me. He’ll be wasting his time with each arrow he shoots but won’t even suspect it!”

Labyrinth of Temptation

With his mighty sword illuminated by Rifkin’s spell, the heavily armoured Fortu leads the way through the dark and twisting labyrinth…

The Bit-of-Both Bow

The frustrating feeling of impotent rage at the absent Sir Briefadel, coupled with the sense of ennui in regard to everything and everyone else, continues on into the sixth day. Even as the Elven Arowe takes an early trance to prepare himself for Hetzabah’s possible next attack, he ironically uses his emotional flatness to coldly consider its cause.

He’d been carrying his blackthorn bow around since finding it amongst the magical treasure in the Three-Quarterling’s cozy, cave-like home. It had been perfect; almost as if left there especially just for him. Enchanted to enhance his aim and power and its pull-strength had been, serendipitously, exactly right for his wiry Elven arms.

Then, when the desert merchant Whackeem had examined it and had praised its exceptional Elven craftsmanship and power, a slightly tipsy Arowe had paid scant attention. Merely assuming that the powers he already knew about were all that Whackeem was inferring. A slight sparkle of joy manages to surface though, as he remembers the fantastically useful, magical quiver he also got at the time.

Now though, he knows better and understands the Oath-bow’s true secret. With the spoken phrase, ‘Death to my enemy’, he can magnify his anger and channel it through the arrows he fires. These arrows then become much more accurate and deadly, potentially punching straight through his opponents. The consequence of this decision though is that his mind becomes an echo chamber to that self-same hate. Becoming indifferent to all other opponents, only to fixate on that ‘chosen one’ and if that ‘chosen one’ somehow manages to escape, he has to suffer through a week of rage, obsession and potentially, dramatically reduced combat capabilities. 

Although a fantastic weapon, its additional boon comes with a heavy price, making it both good and bad, a benefit and a curse. Arowe smiles ruefully again as a random thought pops into his head. His powerful, magical, Elven Longbow is, in fact… A double-edged sword!