Bane the Barbarian – Session 14

DAY 44 (cont)

By the time the battle with the troglodyte priest was over, I was exhausted. My body ached from an assortment of injuries, Muratis was badly savaged as a result of his encounters with the Xorn and Halgar had been beaten to within an inch of his life. Only Sol was relatively unharmed and he was still feeling some of the after effects of his close call with the manticore the day before. As a fighting force we were well and truly spent.

After despatching the remaining priest, who was still ensnared in the web, Muratis suggested retiring to a rope trick to recuperate before anything else turned up. For once I was not opposed to the idea. He was right, if we ran into anything now we could very easily end up dead.

Hurriedly we checked the bodies of the troglodytes for anything of note and Halgar made a shallow grave for the female elf.

While the others were occupied, I wriggled through the web to the rear of the cavern and recovered her heart from where it lay in the dirt. Wrapping it in a scrap of cloth I placed it carefully in my belt pouch where it would be safe. I am not certain why I did this exactly but I felt that it was important and I had a notion that there might be some magic that would allow us to save her still.

In the rope-trick I took the first watch. After an hour or so had gone by the torches in the room had burned down and gone out, so I handed over to Sol, who could see in the dark.

I lay down for a while and listened to Muratis and Halgar having a discussion about group finances. Muratis was deliberating the relative worth of fixtures and fittings as opposed to arms and armour. He seemed to be proposing that more money might be had if we recovered things such as drapes, rugs, curtain rails and brass handles, as well as weapons. To be honest I found the subject a little distasteful. I couldn’t deny that it was a necessary part of our activities, but in many ways it only served to cheapen what I stood for.

I was so tired by that point that despite the aching of my wounds and the unease I felt at being in the rope-trick, I drifted off into a restless slumber.

Five or six hours later I awoke from a troubled sleep. I was a little disorientated and it took a few moments to calm myself when I remembered where I was.

Halgar offered me some healing, which I gratefully accepted, and I began to feel much better.

Still feeling some guilt over the fact that we had not arrived in time to save the elven female, I asked Halgar if anything could be done for her.

“If you really want to, we can take her remains back to Verbobonc and see if she has any family who want to resurrect her” he suggested. “Once we are out of here I can talk to her spirit and find out who she was.”

“Can we do that?” I asked enthusiastically “I really think it would be the right thing to do.”

After a couple more hours had passed Sol, who was on watch again, called us over to the mouth of the rope trick.

“Pssst… Hey you guys… There’s something moving down there”

Though I had no hope of seeing anything in the darkness I couldn’t help squinting past Sol into the inky blackness below.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Erm… I don’t want to alarm anyone but I think one of the bodies just moved” Sol replied.

We stayed there watching, though Sol was the only one who could actually see anything. Muratis was still sleeping.

“Yeah… look… it did it again. I’m sure of it”, said the halfling excitedly.

This didn’t sound good. We were sure the troglodyte couldn’t have survived, Halgar had made sure of it, so was the power of the Earth temple somehow able to animate the dead?

“Wait a minute” Sol piped up “I think it’s a mephit! It’s dragging the troglodyte priest across the floor!”

After a few minutes more Sol was able to confirm his suspicion. He thought there were at least a couple of mephits in the room and one of them was hauling the body of the troglodyte priest toward the ziggurat. It seemed likely that it was heading for the altar!

We could not be certain why it was doing this, but we were all in agreement that it did not bode well.

“I think we should stop it”, urged Sol.

I had to agree. I certainly didn’t want to wait and find out what happened when it got the body to the altar.

“Alright then, let’s do it” said Halgar.

Sol and I immediately jumped out of the rope trick, acrobatically rolling to break our falls as we hit the floor. In one smooth motion I leapt to my feet and sprinted up the tiers of the ziggurat to the altar. Once I was there I held up my sword for illumination and looked around.

I couldn’t make out very much in the darkness, the priest’s body was still on the first tier and the mephits and Sol were nowhere to be seen.

There being nothing else I could do, I waited. At least if I stayed where I was they couldn’t move anything to the altar without me seeing them.

Hearing a loud metallic thud from over by the rope-trick, I noted that Halgar had also made it down, though it would seem that his descent had been somewhat more rapid than he had intended.

He got up and dusted himself off.

Should anyone have been amused by Halgar’s rather clumsy arrival they would have been rapidly forced to reconsider, as he drew himself up to his full height and called upon the power of Vulcanus. It may have been a trick of the light but for a moment it seemed that the shadows drew back from him and as a result the sense of evil that lingered in the Earth temple diminished somewhat.

“Servants of the Eye reveal yourselves”, he commanded in a resounding tone.

There was a pitiful squeak from near the body of the priest. I could just make out one of the mephits cowering there in fear. A second took to the air and tried to get away, but I pursued it and it hid behind a tapestry that hung against the cavern wall.

As I approached, I was able to make out the hellish tableau of demonic images with which the tapestry was adorned. There was something very disturbing about it and I tore it down, exposing the terrified creature behind.

“Come here”, Halgar commanded.

Hesitantly the mephit took to the air again and flapped its way over to him. It joined the other one cowering on the floor.

I was about to follow when I thought I heard a faint noise, like the scrape of metal on stone. It seemed to have come from one of the tunnels leading out of the rear of the cavern, the ones we had not yet explored.

“Did anyone hear that?” I asked.

“Want me to go check it out?” came Sol’s voice from close by, making me jump.

By the gods! No wonder my nerves were on edge, with him sneaking around all the time.

“Yeah” I replied “but be careful”

While he was gone I continued to listen, but during that time there was no further sound.

A few minutes later Sol returned.

“Someone’s hiding up there” he told us. “They’re in an opening leading off to the right a short distance along the tunnel.”

We debated what to do.

Then Halgar asked the mephits about the strength of the opposition.

“According to our new found allies it is four troglodytes” Halgar revealed. “We cannot be certain that they haven’t learned of our presence in the rope-trick, and the fact that they have not come to investigate would suggest that they are not a powerful group. I believe we should deal with them. I can send the mephits in to attack them first which may help.”

Hmmm… The two small bat-winged creatures didn’t look like the most impressive of allies!

There was a certain amount of risk associated with this course of action. Muratis was still sleeping and in recent encounters heavily armoured troglodytes had caused us quite a lot of problems. If Halgar was wrong and these turned out to be similar we could be in deep trouble. However I was reluctant to return to the rope-trick and decided I would rather take my chances. “I’m in” I said, after a moment of contemplation.

Sol was too, and so a short while after he, Halgar and I were sneaking along the tunnel with the two mephits in tow.

Irritatingly the little critters couldn’t seem to stay quiet and kept bickering with each other, flapping around and making angry chirping sounds. We could only hope that the troglodytes wouldn’t be overly concerned about hearing some mephits approaching.

When Sol signalled to us that we were close to the entrance, we halted and Halgar sent the mephits ahead. Eagerly they flapped off into the darkness and a few seconds later there were sounds of a commotion.

Thinking that I would make the most of the confusion I charged in after them.

No sooner had I lunged through the doorway than I came face-to-face with a startled troglodyte. Before he could react I swung at him, and after a couple of solid blows he went down. I noted with some relief that he was slightly smaller than the majority of troglodytes we had faced and only lightly armoured.

Uncharacteristically, rather than fighting, these troglodytes were panicking and trying to get away. Perhaps they had learned to fear us after the way we had carved through their brethren. I took another swing and wounded a second as two of them dived past me to get out of the room. Halgar killed one of them in the doorway but the other broke through. He ran off down the corridor but he didn’t get far. I set off after him and it didn’t take me long to chase him down.

When I returned, the one remaining troglodyte was also dead and the mephits were picking over the corpses. I noted that there were strange sigils adorning the rough-hewn walls and that another passage led away from the rear of the room.

Strange that the troglodytes should run toward us when there was another exit. I wondered what was down there. Perhaps it was just a dead end.

Sol went off to investigate and came back to tell us that there was a cavern ahead with the festering carcass of a large clawed ape lying on the ground. You couldn’t help wondering what had killed it. Sol thought that there were more tunnels beyond it but had sensibly decided not go any further.

He also went to check further along the corridor that the room had led off of, and after a few minutes came running back with a tale of a doorway with a huge giant behind it. The halfling seemed even more excitable than normal and I had the impression that there was more to the story than he was telling, but I didn’t press him for details.

Deciding that discretion was the better course, we returned to the rope trick and Muratis.
There were a few rooms we had bypassed earlier and it was agreed that we should investigate them before continuing. In fact, Muratis proposed that once we had cleared them we should recover anything of value and make a trip out of the mine to Brindinford or Verbobonc. We had only been here a couple of days but already he was running low on certain components that he required for his spells. I had to admit we had been through quite a lot in such a short period. Normally I would have been against this rather time consuming diversion, but the fate of the elven female had been on my mind and this course of action would provide an opportunity to convey her remains to a place of safety and possibly restore her to health.

So the four of us set off into the darkness, retracing our steps to the few places we hadn’t been during our earlier exploration.

One was a torture room, empty but for the bodies of two long dead humans and the others were of little note save for one…

When Sol entered, I heard a muffled exclamation and as we hurried to join him the light we were carrying illuminated a cavern that was swarming with insects. Every inch of the walls, ceiling and floor was obscured. The stale air reeked of death and I sensed there was great evil there.

We withdrew and Halgar sent in the mephits to deal with the bugs. It seemed to be a task they relished and they blasted them with earth and dust and then chomped through chitinous carapaces till they had eaten their fill.

In the far wall of the cavern was an opening that led to a second room where a twisted cadaver was suspended from the ceiling by chains. The body appeared human but its skin was withered and blackened as though it had been consumed long ago by some form of plague. Strangely the remainder of the room was normal enough and appeared to be someone’s living quarters. There were even signs that it had been used in the last few days. I found it difficult to reconcile the two.

Muratis read out words that were written in draconic on a piece of parchment he found. I do not remember it all, but it spoke of a dark master and how the day would come when the Elder Elemental Eye would pass judgement over all. It ended with the words “may you feast upon the warm entrails of the insolent meddlers.”

Though the room appeared to be unoccupied, I could not shake the crawling sensation in the pit of my stomach. It seemed to me that this was a place of evil and pestilence and all I wanted was to be gone from there. The sound of Muratis’s voice echoing around the cavern only served to unsettle me further.

I went to wait outside while the mephits, at Halgar’s bidding, gleefully tore down the gruesome exhibit, and when they had finished he purged what was left with fire.

Once the cadaver had burned to dust, we returned to the ziggurat room where Halgar began performing a ceremony to consecrate the altar and destroy the power of the Earth temple for good.

While he did so I carefully unearthed the body of the elven female and wrapped it in a blanket so that we could deliver her from that evil place.

It was just as Halgar completed the sanctification of the temple, after the altar had been destroyed and the mephits had begun tearing apart the ziggurat, that there was a deep rumbling within the earth. I looked up, wondering if this kind of thing was normal for such rituals, but as the cavern began to shake and bits of rock fell from the roof, it was clear that we were in grave danger. Halgar shouted for everyone to get out.

It only took me a moment to gather the slim form of the female elf, but large chunks of stone were already crashing to the cavern floor all around. Clasping her tightly, I dashed toward the exit. I was barely in time. As Halgar and I crossed the threshold the whole ceiling came down.

Though I was a little bruised after having been hit by a couple of large rocks on the way out I was relieved to discover that we had all got out alive. The two mephits had not been so fortunate but Halgar reminded us that the destruction of their physical form here on Oerth would only release them from the corrupting influence of the Elder Elemental Eye and allow them to return where they belonged.

After a few minutes the tremors ceased and we cautiously went back to the cavern to see the full extent of the damage. Much of the roof had collapsed, and the altar and ziggurat were in ruins, but the way ahead was not completely blocked. It beckoned us onward, but for the time being at least we had other plans. I had no doubt that it would still be waiting when we returned.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS

It took many hours to gather everything of value and transport it to the mine entrance, and many days for the three horses I had been able to find to pull the heavily laden cart to Brindinford.

During the trip, the only incident of note was when Muratis collapsed after having handled the drum from the Earth temple. An item which, along with the disturbing tapestries, he had insisted on bringing despite my better judgement. I hoped this might teach him a valuable lesson about meddling with such things but I doubted it. After all he was a wizard!

After Halgar had prayed to Vulcanus for guidance, we burned both the drum and the tapestries and Muratis soon recovered.

Once we had made it to Brindinford I urged Halgar to perform the ritual that he had spoken of that allowed him to speak with the dead, and afterward he was able to tell me that the elven woman was named Tanyara Glimmerdawn. He also said that he knew she was not evil, because she was a worshipper of one of the elven gods, and that he had been able to use the power of Vulcanus to communicate with her family who were many leagues distant but would come for her if we left her body in the care of the priests at the temple of Pelor in Verbobonc.

I was pleased. Maybe our haphazard rescue might work out after all!

DAY 55

A week and a half later we arrived in Verbobonc. We had spent a couple of days in Brindinford off-loading the bulkier, less valuable items such as non-magical weapons and armour, so that we could leave the cart, and then had distributed the remainder between our mounts. It had still been a lengthy journey however. Even on horseback it took three days to get to Verbobonc from Brindinford, and that was on top of the six days it had taken for the cart to get to Brindinford from the mine. At least we were out in the daylight again though.

The city of Verbobonc was much as we had left it and after we had found rooms at the inn we had stayed at before, Halgar and I took the body of Tanyara Glimmerdawn to the temple of Pelor. Once she was safely under the protection of the priests we spent the rest of the day exploring the markets and stores, and then finished off with a well-earned meal.

DAY 56

The next day I woke early. During the night I had been troubled with thoughts of the elven woman whose body I had born for so many days. I could not help feeling that there were things I had left unfinished and it had suddenly become clear to me what I must do. The others would probably think it was foolish but in my heart I knew it was right.

I went back to the temple and asked the priests to restore Tanyara Glimmerdawn to life. I offered them all the gold I had, since I had no idea how much was required, and I gave them my word that I would make good any shortfall.

The priesthood seemed somewhat perplexed by my actions, but informed me that, in his wisdom, Pelor the radiant and merciful had seen fit to grant me what I asked. To my surprise the priests also returned the majority of the gold, saying that an appropriate donation had been taken and the rest was mine.

That afternoon, Muratis revealed that our share of the money from the sale of the various items we had recovered would be around 1,800 gold each, and Halgar suggested that I use the money to have Tangrel’s sword further enchanted so that it would be even more powerful. Halgar himself was a smith, so he would be able to do the work, but it would still cost me around 4,000 gold, mostly for materials. Thanks to the generosity of the priesthood at the temple I still had a little more than was required, so I agreed.

All in all it had been a pretty good day.

DAY 57

The next morning an ostiary from the temple of Pelor delivered a note to me. It was written by Tanyara Glimmerdawn and it said that she wished to see me.

I went to visit her at the temple.

She was sitting by the window. Her hair was loose and she wore a plain white smock, but even as she was, she was pleasing to look upon. I had the impression that she had been waiting for me there. She looked up and I could see that though her body was healed there was still a haunted look in her eyes.

“The priest tells me that it was you who brought me here” she said a little uncertainly.

“My associates and I, yes” I acknowledged.

“And it was you who had me healed?”

“That is so”

She nodded, appraising me closely for a moment. I had the feeling that she was trying to guess my motives. “You may be disappointed to hear that I am no one of any note, I have no wealth, no gold to give you”, she said sadly.

“I seek no payment” I replied. “Seeing you alive is reward enough”.

She looked at me strangely. It was difficult to gauge what she was thinking.

“Then I owe you a debt that I cannot repay, save with my thanks and the prayer that one day the gods will grant me the power to return your kindness”, she offered.

I noticed her shiver slightly and I suspected that her thoughts had returned to what had befallen her in the mines.

“I know it is difficult for you but it may help me to know by what misfortune you came to be in that foul place?” I asked.

Her reply was not immediate and I could see that she was still deeply troubled by what had transpired.

“I shall tell you what there is to tell, though I doubt that it will be of any use to you”, she said. “I was travelling here to Verbobonc in search of fame and fortune but, while crossing the mountains, I was accosted by four black garbed men. They beat me unconscious and when I awoke I was chained in the darkness somewhere under the ground. They kept me prisoner there for two or three days before they came and dragged me to the altar and … sob … you know the rest.”

When she had finished her short tale she was close to tears and I regretted my insensitivity.

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you”, I said. “I should go.”

She did her best to smile.

“After all that has happened I’m afraid I am not myself” she said apologetically. “You have done so much for me and I have shown little gratitude. Please stay, I would be glad of the company.”

There were no pressing matters for me to attend to, I would only be waiting for the others, so I did as she asked.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS

Muratis, Halgar and Sol completed their business in Verbobonc and departed for Brindinford. They would be spending a couple of weeks there while Halgar worked to perform enchantments on various items; his own and Sol’s armour, a sling and my sword. I could go with them and sit around kicking my heels or I could make my excuses and stay in Verbobonc so that I could spend some more time with Tanyara. It wasn’t a hard decision. I entrusted Halgar with the sword, and arranged to meet them in Brindinford in thirteen days.

I spent much of that time in Tanyara’s company. Over the next few days, the weight of her ordeal lifted somewhat and she brightened. I told her much of what had happened to me and she listened to it all with a mixture of wonder and concern. I even spoke to her of things that had troubled me and of how keenly I had felt the loss of my friend Az. I grew very fond of her.

When the time came for me to depart I gave her what money I had to maintain her until her family arrived, and she favoured me with a braid of her hair to remember her by.

Then I bid her farewell and set out on the long road to Brindinford.