Delusions? What delusions?
Exploding out of the pit in a great gout of fire only to rise up into the air, coated in sparking star-matter yet unmarred by flame like some revivified god, the Egorian was admittedly feeling quite grand. The fact that he was still riding so high on the devil's gruesome death - and the message it represented - that the magical flight was hardly necessary also added to his rather majestic frame of mind at the moment. Still, he was hardly delirious. Novox prided himself on the integrity of his mental faculties. What an unfair accusation. He would never think of himself as deific. No, Narsus Novox was human. Perfectly, perfectly human.
He exhaled a breath of air so hot it could have boiled an egg. "That's a funny way of asking for help, Rahadoumi."
Hovering near the ceiling, the wizard eyed the almost comical chase below him for a moment, Hax continually just one step ahead of the insect swarm nipping at his heels. Hm. Should he aid the mercenary by blasting the beetles to kingdom come? He could. But, he reflected, even if a fireball should prove enough to disperse them, which he wasn't entirely convinced of, his resources were precious few. It had been a long day. And it wasn't over yet. Grandiose as the solar dive had been - intentionally so - Novox knew he had all of two spells left bound to him. This wasn't much to work with. Two wings remained of the complex. Then the escape through the stone forest. And then, he had no doubt, that damnable deer awaited them outside the portal.
He gave an annoyed sigh. And he had almost been looking forward for a chance to sift through the Vice's planar refuse here. If the Hellknights considered the items here worthy of destruction, then no doubt there was a hidden gem or two he could make use of laying about. He cast his broken gaze round the facility again. There wasn't another convenient death trap or two he could lead the swarm into, was there?
"Hax, the door." The diabolist pointed to the the other end of the room. "We're leaving and locking them in here."
"Hax, the door." The diabolist pointed to the the other end of the room. "We're leaving and locking them in here."
As it happened, Novox could see not just one but several death traps to lead the swarm into. Open furnaces, massive presses, crusher drains - all promised to make swift work of the critters if introduced. Yes, this should be doable.
"Hax," he called, the voice firm but betraying no alarm nor hurry. "Over here."
The wizard choose as his staging ground an empty spot before a conveyor belt, onto which a strange sort of mechanized bellow belched fire with regular intervals, another process set up by the Hellknigths to incinerate whatever they disapproved of. It would do. "Lead them here." Though obviously no world-class intellects, the beetles weren't entirely mindless. They were unlikely to simply run headfirst into their death like lemmings off cliffs. But luring them before the flame-spurting device the moment before it released burning death? That should be possible.
A plan having formed, Hax ran to the spot his ward had landed, evading more than one of the other dangers of the facility in doing so. The ravenous insects remained hot on his heels. "Go, keep running," Novox said as he reached him, remaining in position. He foresaw no danger in playing bait, after all. Should the little beasts reach him, he could simply take to the air. But if they had timed this right...
A hiss of gas preceded the roar of fire. The thousand hungry mouths, skittering for a prey that merely stood there for the taking, had congregated on the Egorian over Hax as their paths crossed. It was the horde that was eaten, however, as a great gout of fire suddenly consumed them all. Novox too disappeared in the flame, unfazed as he was by the danger. The potion's protection still remained; it would take the furthest extremes of heat to reach him for now.
"Did they bite you?" he asked as the shower subsided. Heat waves blurred his form. "I believe these beetles carry a toxin."
Having dispatched the most immediate threat, the diabolist was not quite ready for them to leave yet. "Indulge me in searching the Hellknight's refuse, will you? I can only guess that these items hail from all across the multiverse. It would be a great crime to allow some unappreciated artifact be lost to those philistines' machinery."
"And," he added, appealing to the mercenary's practical side, "there may even be some tool here that could aid us."
Hax looked ready to argue, and Novox wondered idly if he found the work beneath him or if it was some other matter. Still, the wizard found it hard to focus. For the first time in years, his mind was his own. No needling comments, no sarcastic taunts, or honeyed temptations. Novox could walk through the vaults of his own thoughts, like a monk finally given the run of a great cathedral. It was enjoyable, but a bit overwhelming.The Chelishman wondered how long it would last.
But the Rahadoumi shrugged and said nothing, and helped the search.
The forge wasn't the easy place to examine. For one thing, the smashing hammers, gouts of yellow flames and roaring furnaces were highly distracting. Novox managed to turn some off, but much of the mechanism was confusing even to his mind and he didn't wish to waste time. For another, the room was a chaotic mess, with piles of smashed items intermingled with things that had escaped the frenzy of destruction. lastly, Novox had no idea how safe any given item was. Had the Hellknights already scanned for cursed items, or something with a mind of it's own?
Still, despite all of this, it was a treasure trove that made Novox's mind reel. It was the sheer variety that constantly surprised the wizard as he poked through tottering piles of seeming scrap and ruin. Was that truly a shard of glass from the Negative Plane? And this had to be a bottled bit of quintessence from the Malestorm? Novox saw bits of enameled pillars from the Plane of Fire and and bits of stamped passports from the Boneyard.
At one point Novox worked out a disc of glittering gold from the pile. Under a smudge of grease he saw it was a street sign from Axis itself! With wonder he held it up tot he light, when Hax plucked it from his fingers. The mercenary grunted and then heaved it into the star furnace. It arced like a comet for a moment, a plume of molten gold, before vanishing.
"Divine trash."
Most of the art was too bulky or too ruined to truly save though. The Hellknights had done their work well. He did find a perfectly carved stone lotus that must have come from Nirvana itself, carefully inscribed with holy mantras of meditation. He also found an artistic scroll, depicting a rushing river flowing up a waterfall in breathtakingly fine design. The only other item he found intact was a small ornate brass box, bearing no sign or sigil. It had a keyhole, but was locked fast. When he held it up to his ear, he could hear very slow clicking, like that of tired gears and wheels.
On a more practical level, Novox found two magical items he could use.
An Elixir of Truth, bright blue liquid that sizzled slightly.
And a set of restless lockpicks seemingly carved out of human bone. They clattered in a sickly fashion when handled.
But soon time drew on and Novox knew he was wasting time and indulging himself. Also, he caught Hax tossing a few more bits of art into the solar fires. Clearly the ingrained traditions of a lifetime did not go away easily. It was time to depart.
So they left the still rattling forge, and heading back out into the dark main foyer. The floor was still littered with damaged art and artifacts but Novox noticed know that the destruction here had been far more haphazard and clumsy. Brute force with sword and fist, or even teeth. Why the difference?
The western wing stood dim and quiet, and for the first time Novox missed Bill. The imp had made a good scout. Shrugging, the wizard lifted his Light and went onwards. A familiar scent wafted out of the still hidden room, and arrested him.
"Trouble?" Hax said calmly. A bout of divine destruction seemed to have calmed him.
Novox had spent much of his life surrounded by this smell, and even now his memory went back to the great libraries and book-hoards he had plumbed. It was the unmistakable scent of old paper and parchment. A great deal of paper lay beyond their circle of illumination.
His first instinct had held true, Novox recognized. He really could have spent years sorting through the gathered refuse. Pale fingers roved the bright gold plate, tracing the groves of the meticulous lettering. A tiny piece of Axis, the Perfect City. Magnificent. A thousand million souls mingling together in the Great Beyond, their collective ideas of law and order manifesting in a ideal metropolis. In a sense it was everything the Egorian dreamed of: a people coming together to build something greater than the sum of their parts, engraving their national identity into their architecture, arts and even industry. Making their destiny manifest. It was admirable, if only a byproduct of the nature of the Outer Planes. And this the Hellknights had wanted to destroy. My, but the Vice had been overzealous in their zealotry.
Hm. This would have been the point where the imp commented on Novox scrutinizing the handsome golden disc moreso for the handsomer reflection within, and what this said about his sexuality.
"Divine trash."
Prodigious as the wizard's thoughts were, he did not manage to react before Hax had swiftly yanked the artifact out of his hands and with a lackadaisical throw reduced it to star-dust. Novox said nothing, emoted nothing, and merely fixed the mercenary with a glare that could have soured a well.
"A query of principles for you, Hax," he said, voice as weary as a lecturer addressing a schoolroom of nitwits. "You come across a magic sword promising to make you three times the warrior you are now. It happens to bear a religious icon. Do you destroy it? I ask so that I might know the limits of your usefulness. And because I've met vampires more tolerant of holy symbols than you."
Hells below, the damn thing hadn't even been divine as such, not properly so. No god had shaped it, or at least in all likelihood hadn't. Bah, no matter. Impressive as the collection of curiosities was, the diabolist acknowledged that it was little but academic wonder that kept him lingering here. Not much was any real use to him, and he was, as ever, a pragmatic man. Cheliax's last great hope couldn't afford to indulge. Still, a few items were too tantalizing or just plain practical to ignore. While no master safe-cracker, the enchanted lockpicks fit comfortably into his pocket and if nothing else represented a fair bit of coin. The vial of truth serum was similarly intriguing; Novox had no doubt he could find a use for it. He also decided upon seizing some items of more dubious worth. The immaculately carved stone lotus from Nirvana was undeniably beautiful, and only a fool did not recognize the utility that came with beauty. People craved beauty in their lives. Being able to offer it in the form of a gift was not to be underestimated. Keeping the small brass box was more speculative, however. Not being able to open it, the diabolist acknowledged that it was an utter punt as to whatever inside it was worth taking, but he allowed his curiosity to get the better of him on this occasion. And with that it was time to leave.
One floor full of broken junk replaced another as the trio turned duo reached the foyer again. Novox held his hideous rod high, letting its light reach the room's every corner. Nothing seemed to have changed here. Nothing beyond his perception of the place. Having seen the un-forge in the western wing, he now recognized that whatever had destroyed the objects here likely wasn't the machinery there. Hm. Probably the animated log of wood then. Although why exactly it should do so was a question that irked the wizard.
But in the next moment any such consideration was blown clean out of the vaunted halls of his intellect. Replacing it was burgeoning anticipation. Could it be? Was that a library he spied ahead? Narsus Novox had never celebrated his birthday as a child, but he imagined this was what it felt like.
Dare Novox hope for a library? Did the Hellknight also collect books of lore and power? He knew some orders in Cheliax kept forbidden collections of heretical texts, hidden in vaults of iron, works of magic and power (or just of unpopular opinion). Had the long-lost Order of the Vice kept something similar? texts from other Planes? Novox's mind burned with the possibilities.
As they walked, Hax actually laughed, "The imp was right, Novox. You will rush to your own damnation. You ask me about dishonest tools, just after your own precious servant turned on you and tried to kill us both. If that does not reveal the wisdom of my thought to you, nothing will. If a sword had a symbol of Gorum on it, I'd file it off. If it keeps the magic, I'll use it. If it loses the magic, then it was was always conditional and not to be trusted." The fighter snorts, "Would you trust your life to the whims of some distant outsider? Well, maybe you would, but I won't."
They passed into the other wing, the smell of dry paper overwhelming now. Lifting his light, Novox peers into the room.
Near the front are a few steel desks, each with a heavy ledger on top. Behind them, receding into the gloomy depths are wooden cabinets, with small drawers. On each cabinet a word is branded, a label. The vast majority bear the word Destroyed, the black letters dark against the wood.
Another says To be processed, while a sole cabinet says Vault.
And that is all. Interestingly, there is little sign of disorder here, as behind. The cabinets stand upright, drawers closed properly, everything in it's place.
Looking down at an open ledger, Novox can see a list written in many cramped hands. It is a series of objects, along with place names (some of which only bear a question mark) and a date of arrival. A record of every object the Order gathered, processed, examined and then destroyed.
"Cowardice, Hax. Cowardice," the Egorian reprimanded his companion confidently, his easy stroll showing no sign of the life-and-death struggle they had just escaped.
"You mistake prudence for cowardice. And even prudence is the least of all virtues. Can you swim, man? Can you ride a horse? For those are the dishonest tools you speak of. Mundane capabilities made simple through practice yet dangerous to the untrained. If we all adopted the Rahadoumi philosophy, humanity would be reduced to cave dwellers. 'No, no, don't step below the open sky! Sometimes it rains lightning! Sometimes!' I'm subjugating Hell, for Aroden's sake. Some growing pains are to be expected. If we are to make mistake, let them be mistakes of ambition, not of timidness."
These Rahadoumi, honestly. So like their desert ostriches sticking their heads in the sand. So fainthearted. Conquerors were not made by denying opportunity for its inherent danger. Novox had experienced his first hurdle as diabolist, but that was all it was: a hurdle. It would not deter him. Why, the imp's betrayal had been inevitable. If anything he recognized now that he had been naive in thinking that Bilbastis would be his first and only such imp. Of course the damnable thing would despair at serving under such a supreme intellect as himself. Of course it would lash out in frustration knowing that it could never best him. Yes, this little inconvenience had been inevitable. And Novox would keep teaching Hell this lesson until that day his diabolic slave knew it could only resign itself to its fate. He would make a mountain of dead imps if necessary.
"How does the rhyme go?" he concluded both his own thoughts and the rebuttal. "If at first you don't succeed..." Reaching the eastern wing, he held the shining gothic monstrosity that was his rod high. "...Try, try again." The first thing its light struck was his pleased smile. An archive. Stupendous.
So the Vice had kept a record of every item ever committed to its collection and subsequently destroyed. Of course they had. The Hellknights were nothing if not methodical. Perfect. The wizard felt a certain comfort standing among the shelves and cabinets. These were surroundings he was familiar with. Ignoring the drawers marked 'Destroyed', the contents of which were no doubt too tragic to contemplate, Novox set for those bearing 'To be Destroyed'. Those and especially the lone cabinet describing the vault's innards were of singular interest.
Hax snorted, "So goeth the pride before the fall, or so the wise say. Sometimes it is best to fear the lighting." Then he said nothing else and let Novox roam among the crowded cabinets. The fighter was clearly bored of the room, and found a chair to sit in, scrutinizing the blade of his sword for nicks or chips.
To the wizard's delight, the cabinets branded To Be Processed were not locked. The small drawers opened smoothly to his touch, and he rifled through them with ease born of long experience. The small cards were soft and cool under his touch, paper rustling quietly in the dark. The writing was done neatly, with a scribe's precision and skill, clearly the same man had done most of them.
Novox pulled a card at random and read
One vial of virgin's tears
Glass vial with frosty blue liquid inside. Judged unwise to open.
Retrieved at Fey Witchmarket, First World
Then followed a precise date of entry.
Another.
Tapestry honoring Kelizandri
Large tapestry woven of pressed seaweed and baleen. Burns human flesh on contact.
Retrieved during raid to Plane of Water
And more, dozens more. They detailed everything from statute made of giant bone to seeds from the forest of Malebolge, on the sixith level of Hell. Some were purchased, or traded for at marketplaces while others had been captured in battle. A few were merely marked with question marks, as if they had been unsure where they had been found. One or two were marked with a purple brand, the sign of the Order. Novox wondered what that meant. Dangerous items, destined for a quick destruction or perhaps those deemed of worthy study?
The single cabinet branded Vault was another matter. It was not wood, but a dull beaten steel and welded to the floor and wall. Hax glanced up and whistled, "They didn't want that one running off."
Novox examined it but could see no traps or magical barriers, but in his current state would would he see? For one thing, these drawers clearly had locks, heavy bolts of dark iron. Novox leaned closer, wondering how he might open it without distrubing it, when there was a dim flash of gold.
Fearing a trap, the wizard leaned back quickly. But there was no beam of energy, no ball of fire, or even shooting arrow. A gust of gold dust seemed to rise off the cabinet, swirling like a tiny desert cyclone. Even as Novox watched the sinuous pattern became rigid and geometrical, wholly unnatural. To the Chelixan surprise, it became math. Mathematical formulas danced in the dust, folding and unfolding in a beauty that nearly made Novox weep. The equations were unfamiliar to him, but seemed to be some high form of...calculus?
Then the figures froze in place, as if startled.
"Human." Said a strange, metallic voice. "Age, approximately 30 years. Place of Origin, unknown. Magic user, wizard?" The note of questioning was like a bit of grit in a finely oiled machine, as if it hated the uncertainty. "Not of the Order. Purpose, unknown. Intruder."
"Explain." It ordered Novox, voice calm and cool.
Hax stood up, sheathing his sword.
Novox stared at the dust for a moment, eyes tracing the elegant formulas hanging in mid-air.
It was painfully obvious to the wizard what this strange being was. It was an axiomite. A being of pure Law. A suitable servant for a library.
The dust flickered slightly at the movement and spoke again, the voice sounding more human and natural now, "Please, explain your purpose or defensive measures will be taken."
Twin eyebrows, expertly maintained, arched in begrudging awe even as the dark eyes below reflected the golden light of the creature before them. An axiomite. Impressive. Novox watched the dancing dust equations that were the creature with obvious interest before answering its request. Despite the nominal threat in said request, despite the inherent power he knew such a being possessed, he felt strangely at ease. Even beyond the archive and the familiar surroundings it provided, he felt he was on firm ground here. Like a farmer on his own acres. After all, what was this but planar binding at a high level? He was a conjurer; he had trained for this most of his life.
"...By what parameters?" The voice was clear, the back straight as the Egorian tucked both hands behind him like a proper statesman. Nothing in his demeanor betrayed anything but quiet conviction and academic curiosity.
"'Intruder', noun, first recorded usage in 1534. Definition: a person who enters a building, grounds, etc, without permission or where they are not wanted," he continued, quoting from the good Dr Sohnjon's seminal dictionary on the Taldan language as well as his memory served him (albeit admittedly flubbing the year). "If these parameters are also your own, then I regret intruding on you, axiomite, although the strictest demarcation of the term should preclude me from being labeled as such. After all, I had no one to ask permission before entering, nor is there anyone here to object to my presence."
No courteous trivialities. No cordial posturing. Not even a greeting. If Novox knew his axiomites, and he thought he did, then they did not care for inane pleasantries. The very idea was likely even alien to them. Beings of perfect law and order had no use for anything but raw data in their interactions. But of course, that data had to pertain to some purpose of theirs. With absolute efficiency came absolute narrow-mindedness. This was what he was banking on. That he could play upon the outsider's ideas and interest to mark himself as, if not an ally then a non-threat. Something not pertaining to its duties here. It was the wizard's assumption that the Vice had bound the creature here to serve as some sort of guard, after all. Mayhap it had no need - dare he hope want? - to obey anything more than the letter of its orders.
"To answer your question, axiomite, I was hoping to peruse this cabinet marked 'Vault', though I feel the need to ask you a question in turn: namely whether you are aware that the Hellknight Order of the Vice has been defunct, I dare even say annihilated, for a few hundred of our years now? It is why I say I had no one to ask permission from, nor anyone to offend, in coming here."
Novox rather hoped this incarnation of order in the multiverse could be reasoned with. On one hand he doubted he could best it in battle in his current, diminished, state, but on the other he felt no particular animosity towards it. Much as he loathed the planar agents of both good and evil - always meddling as they did in mortals affair, always trying to mold humanity in their image instead of letting his people achieve their own destiny - the ever neutral axiomites were not quite so distasteful. To his knowledge these outsiders were just that: outsiders, aliens who did not interfere in the mortal world, instead tending to their own concerns. This being did not have to be his enemy.
But on the marilith's third hand all who opposed Narsus Novox, whatever their reason, had to fall.
The axiomite seems to consider this for a moment, the geometrical dust vibrated every so slightly above the steel cabinet. In the silence Hax stands up, and rolls his eyes. Quietly he says, "From one to another..."
Finally the axiomite answers, voice dry, "Preliminary data had suggested a considerable probability of such a failure. Calculations had shown a non-trivial confidence in their return, with only the negligible cost of waiting. Are you confident in your proposed postulation, human?"
Only a single beat of silence when the outsider goes on, "Disregard inquiry. Eye movements, spinal posture and tonal inflections indicate virtual certainty." There was a audible click, like two smooth stones rubbed together. Novox wondered if it was something like a sigh.
"Then I will follow the final directive of the Order, in case of such outcomes." A web of very fine red lines appeared on the cabinet, tiny strings of fire. "Destroy all records contained therein."
Another click. "This is undesirable of itself, for destruction is disorder and loss. Yet, it is the command given. The order of operations is clear." The tiny red lines seemed to grow, slowly.
"Hold."
The simple charge was as muted as it was firm, a hammer draped in silk. There was little that betrayed the Egorian's anxiety at the sudden possibility of the cabinet's contents going up in smoke, for reading these had very nearly turned into a secondary objective. The ingrained instincts of a trained conjurer were kicking in. Bargaining with, manipulating and coercing outsiders - beyond his grand destiny as savior to all of mankind, this was his profession. Almost more so than the vault records, Novox could not help but feel that it was his professional pride that was on the line. He was being tested. And so it was with no small amount of determination, even pleasure, that he continued, posture as steady and dignified as if he had a debating podium before him:
"You are correct, of course. You must uphold your function here, and I cannot and will not ask you to defy your commands." In the pregnant pause that followed the dark eyes stared into the core of the golden cloud, not at the axiomite itself, but rather at myriad equations that formed its being. "I can, however, question their precision. Graph them."
Yes, he assured himself. Honeyed words and a glib tongue would get him nowhere. If the axiomite was to be convinced of anything, it would have to be through that which it held most dear: math and reason. "You cannot graph the Vice's commands to you," he went on. "Of course you can't. As you said, they form an order of operations: a sequence. They are purely sequential. No complete graph can be formed with a single axis, and that is all you have: a sequence of events. But the two of us know that such a simple construct is so flawed as to be meaningless. What you have been handed, axiomite, is an incomplete equation. And in the attempt to resolve it, in accordance with your nature, you have inserted a second variable: the axis of time. You have decided that time equaling zero, the Hellknights meant for you to destroy these records the instant you knew of their disappearance. This completes the equation. This makes a graph. But we both recognize that this was never made clear in your commands. You are acting on your own accord to resolve an incomplete formula."
It was a thin argument. Novox knew this. But it wasn't entirely incorrect. The finest of technicalities might not matter to most, but to a being very literally built out of perfect order it just might be enough. Especially, he reasoned in winding up for his next blow, if such a loophole appealed to pre-established directives. "Axiomite," he said, voice taking on a new directness, "I won't deny that I am trying to dissuade you. As you postulated, I am a wizard. Like yourself I value knowledge and the light it shines on the ultimate order of our multiverse. The position I am taking is that we can both have what we want. Adjust your variables. You can do this without defying your commands; the variable I speak of is of your own making. Add a value to the time axis in our graph. This would give us space between the sequence dictated to you, space in which we can both reach our objectives, our true objectives. I speak not of the purpose forced upon you here by the Vice, but your purpose as a keeper of order. Simply delay the destruction of the records. Allow me to read them and the knowledge they represent will not be lost but put to new use."
Would this work? Novox wasn't sure. What he did know was that he took no insignificant degree of pleasure in the attempt. Adapting his titanic mind to the mode of thought of an alien being, besting and manipulating creatures of myth; at best it confirmed his superiority. At worst it was good exercise.
"I am not asking you to defy your directive, axiomite. I am indicating a means by which we may both have what we want in the space between the sequence to which you are bound."
"A interesting postulation, human." The outsider said without a pause. The cloud of angular dust's voice altered slightly, like a professor praising a bright student.
"Worthy of praise. To adjust the parameters of the directives, to achieve both your ends and my commands. Ingenious." Then there was that dry click again as it went on, "However, only limited deviations can be permitted without dissolving function. Order instructions are clear, termination of Vault records upon immediate discovery."
The red lines on the steel cabinet flare brightly, and Novox feels a wave of heat. They fade instantly but the smell of charred paper fills the air and Novox can, quite liteally, taste the bitter ashes of defeat on his tongue.
"Contract, concluded, well within pre-ordered bounds." The dust swirls suddenly, rising from the cabinet. The mathematical symbols waver and blur, and the axiomite makes as if to fly away. Then it pauses, and settles back into a fixed shape of equations.
"Human, your request was clever and well worded. Your equations well founded. Reward?" A dramatic pause as the outsider obviously consulted some internal library.
"The Vault is not yet unguarded." Then it vanished in a flicker of planar travel, leaving Novox and Hax alone in the mildewed library.
Hax coughed and said, "At least it had a better vocabulary then Bill. What was it?"
A sigh escaped the perfectly straight nose of the diabolist as he watched reality crackle and snap around the outsider slipping through it. His petition had failed. Oh well. Despite his pride, despite his punctilious standards for himself, Novox was neither particularly disheartened nor angered at this failure. After all, by every metric imaginable his approach with the axiomite had been laudable, even winning the being's respect. Earning the sympathy of a sentient cloud of equations was not exactly equivalent to wringing blood out of the proverbial stone, but it came close. The magic binding the beyonder here was simply such that couldn't be defied. The failure was not his. As such the wizard had little to regret, and merely appreciated this small bit of experience in planar dealings. It could come to serve him well.
Of course, the end result was still a very toasted cabinet. The corners of Novox's mouth sank another few degrees. And make no mistake; had said cabinet actually represented anything of real importance to him, then the Egorian's phlegmatic state of mind would be running considerably hotter than any burning paper.
"At least it had a better vocabulary then Bill. What was it?"
"Did it? Its lexicon was as limited as the imp's, in its own way, albeit not nearly as offensive, I grant you."
Novox spoke calmly in giving the smoldering remains of the records an exploratory little rustle with one foot. You never knew. Perhaps they had been home to something more hardy than paperwork. "They are commonly referred to as axiomites, living incarnations of law and order as the imp was of wickedness and spite. It is not altogether surprising to find one in service to an order of Hellknights."
Having said this, he turned on his heel and walked away. The library had nothing more to offer him, and there was still work to be done. Namely, there was a vault guardian to slay.
"I doubt Bill knew the word 'postulate'." Hax comments, re-sheathing his sword. "Still, I suppose I should be happy you didn't bind it to our service. Once bitten, twice shy."
The pair left the ruined records room, which held no further attraction for Novox. While impressive, it held no route to power or knowledge or event he abstract concept of saving items of value. Merely the decaying records of a defunct order. The Vault on the other hand...
Soon Novox and Hax stand before the iron grate of the final wing of the building. It looks much the same as the other two, solid bars of metal welded into a sturdy frame. It is hanging open, the heavy lock unclasped, and a chain is loosely draped over it. Clearly it could have once been bound and closed quite securely, but now it yields easily under their touch. The iron squeals loudly in the gloom, the heavy weight heavy on the old hinges.
Novox's light casts a faint glow as they step forward into darkness. Slowly he reveals a small stone room, little more then slight widening the hallway. The walls and roof are bare, simply the cool hard rock of the Material Plane. There is no furniture here, not even a single desk or chair destroyed or otherwise. The far wall is taken up by a massive iron door, which stretches from wall to wall. In the middle is a heavy spoked metal wheel, like the helm of a mighty ship. The wizard's eye is drawn, however, to the humanoid figures.
Four humanoid figures lie on the cold ground. Three simple to be iron constructs of some kind, rather crude constructions honestly. They are smashed, cut and broken, with limbs cast aside in memory of an ancient fury. The fourth is a Hellknight, the first human body Novox has seen inside the vault. He is dressed in the full armor of his order, complete with spiked helmet and a heavy glaive.
Above the bodies a translucent shape floats, like a shining fogbank. It is in the shape of the fallen Hellknight below, wearing the same armor and bearing the same weapon. For a moment Novox wonders if this is some bit of misplaced artwork, but then it moves. The glittering whiteness shifts, like a cloud caught by a breeze.
"Who comes forth to this accursed place?" It suddenly intones, a cold voice issuing from an unseen mouth. The glaive shifts into a guard stance and yet Novox detects a waver of hesitation from the apparition, a slight tremble of doubt.
At his side Hax mutters, laconic as ever, "Ghost."
"Still, I suppose I should be happy you didn't bind it to our service. Once bitten, twice shy."
"And 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' as I believe the common people are wont to say." The reply was entirely dismissive, if not mean-spirited. Maliciousness required one to actually care about what was being said, and the Egorian couldn't give a single iota about Hax's rustic wisdom. "We've been over this, Rahadoumi. I don't appreciate empty rhetoric any more than an axiomite does. Words can be twisted and turned to whatever end one pleases. And I should know. Although personally I've found that the burnt child only fears that fire they haven't yet learnt to harness." For a moment the wisps of smoke from the library behind them transformed within Novox's nose into something related yet separate and he wasn't smelling burning paper any more. He was smelling the heady stink of an old tannery's moldy timber in flames. This smell was displeasing to him. And yet the memory wasn't.
But while the diabolist wasn't prone to living in his past, he soon encountered a being very nearly literally doing so.
"Ghost."
"Yes, thank you, Hax," he muttered, something approaching annoyance in the voice this time. "You'll be sure to warn me should any other surruptious threat strike, won't you? A cream peach howler monkey with a xylophone perhaps?"
Truth be told Novox was less irritated with the mercenary than he was discomfited with the sudden specter, however. Ghosts were not to be trifled with, and he felt singularly unprepared for combating one. And worse yet, unlike, say, an incarnation of logic and reason such apparitions were notoriously difficult to bargain with. It took an exceptional will, obsession even, to anchor one's soul against the call of the afterlife, and this single-minded drive rarely left ghosts entirely lucid. Still, at least it wasn't any great mystery what had compelled this Hellknight's spirit to rise again. If ghosts arose from the obsessive, then it was a wonder that there weren't more Hellknight phantoms about in the world.
What was a mystery were the crude constructs littering the floor alongside the haunt's corpse. Some automatons designed to guard the vault? If so, why had they turned on the Hellknight? Or, flipping the question on its head, why had the Hellknight turned on them? Had he too been afflicted by whatever murderous madness had overtaken the rest of the Vice? Crucially, did that madness still hold sway over him in death? Only one way to find out.
"You are addressing Narsus Novox, loyal servant to the crown, specter," the wizard replied to the eerie query, doing his very best to exude the confidence and authority he frankly wasn't feeling at the moment. "Will you identify yourself in turn? Who are you? Why are you here?"
Despite (or because of) Novox's towering pride, needling the wizard wasn't easy and Hax smiled knowing he had hit his mark. The fighter did not reply but merely drew back a pace, letting Novox handle the ghost.
Novox's loud words ring loud and clear in the stone room, echoing off the walls. They seem to hang there, as if the silence itself was baffled by such a rude interruption. A long moment passes, so long Novox begins to wonder if there is a problem. Was the ghost deaf? Mute? Little more then an automation, no longer guided by a mind? Was it nothing more then a fragment of a man, left to stand guard long after reason had fled?
Then the ghost reached up, and pulled off his spiked helmet. A pale face was revealed, with high cheekbones, brooding eyebrows and a man of silvery hair that rippled like seaweed behind him. The dark eyes level at Novox for a moment and then, the ghost laughed. It was cold and mirthless sound, but human enough.
"I see the crown, and its agents, have not changed. As proud and sharp as ever." The spirit says, letting go of the helmet. It vanished into ether, less then a puff of smoke. "I say changed, for some time has passed, has it not? It is hard to mark its passage in a chamber of dark stone, but I feel it."
A strange melancholy seems to enter his voice, like someone touching on a deep desire long hidden. Then the ghost shrugs, an odd gesture for a floating figure that makes his entire form fold like a flag in the breeze.
"I was Magister of the Second File in the Order of the Vice. Sir Sirino Caesus was my name, knighted by the High Lictor himself. As for why...I could ask the same of you. Why are you here, Narsus Novox, servant of the Crown? What brings you to this strange plane and how are you unaffected by what lies in yonder castle?"
"I see the crown, and its agents, have not changed. As proud and sharp as ever."
"Never like me." It wasn't bravado gleaming in the dark eyes as the wizard replied, quietly. It was conviction, as certain as the ghost's form was wavering, as firm as it was intangible. "The Crown has never had an agent like me, I assure you."
No wailing against fate, no muddling of personage, no rattling of chains. Novox was somewhat surprised to find the specter so seemingly lucid. Surprised, but not pleasantly so. No, that verdict was still to be determined. The deceased apparently being in full control of their faculties could make him that much harder to circumvent, but they would have to see. For now he decided to speak to the ghost as any other Hellknight, with no consideration for his discorporeal state, given his clarity. He had a feeling the lawbringer would not take kindly to simpering flattery.
"But you are of course right, Sir Caesus. While the circumstances behind your death are unfamiliar to me, I estimate some two centuries to have passed since. ...My condolences to yourself and your brothers in arms."
Strange as it felt to offer one's sympathies to the undead upon their passing, the wizard's gesture wasn't entirely disingenuous as he added a stolid little bow in emphasis, slick black hair reflecting the pale light of the deceased. The mere fact that they may have to come to blows in some moments was no reason not to be civil. Were they not Chelish?
"Am I to understand by your words that the cliff-side castle was somehow responsible for your order's doom? How so? What is this - 'strange' as you say - plane, and what befell the Vice? You must forgive me if I seem ignorant. I believe that my companion and I are the first people to venture here since your fall."
Curious as he was to hear what light the Hellknight might be able to shed on the mystery that was the Vice's ruin, Novox was quite eager for more than just this. This was the lucid remnant of an educated Chelishman of a pre-Thrune Cheliax. A Cheliax before diabolism, before the devils. Even discounting his penchant for history, Novox almost wished to make simple conversation with the apparition. This Caesus no doubt harbored some fascinating first-hand accounts of his beloved homeland during better times. Were the circumstances different he would be offering him a drink and a table.
"As for why I am here, that answer lies behind you." Novox nodded through the incorporeal man to the formidable portal behind him. "I'm led to think that an object of some importance to me rests in that vault. I have overcome not insignificant dangers to stand here and would enter it."
Lying about this fact would do him no good, the diabolist recognized. Not with the specter immediately in front of the door. He would have to pass him regardless. The ghost's response to this desire, however, would determine what he would have to lie about.
The ghostly Hellknight merely sneered at Novox's declaration, clearly unimpressed. He also seemed unmoved by Novox's rather genuine sympathy about the death of his order and all he knew or loved. Either the news was not news to him or he found Novox's delivery less then desired.
"Some of your questions I will answer, some I will not, and some will wait." Sir Caesus said evenly, voice still cold and somewhat distant, like someone sounded over a foggy field. "I know your kind of old, servant. Proud and grasping, with no aim but yourself. Useful enough, but not to be trusted. Information to you, is a weapon at my throat."
Then the shade hesitated and added, looking ever so slightly ashamed. "Forgive my wandering tongue, I grow uncouth. Long waiting in the dark." A shrugs, 'As if I had a throat in any case." And yet Novox can detect something beneath the ghosts manner, some...desire. There was something for this Hellknight to lose (or gain). He was not totally disinterested, despite being dead.
"There is some force in the castle, some being, older then us. For we merely found this place to build our stronghold, we did not make it. The force...confused us, deceived us into seeing phantoms and shadows." The dead man smiled, and it was like frost on a window pane, "Drove us mad."
Then he shrugged, "However, it seems to have not effected you. Perhaps it has gone, it has been a long time. For time does pass here, if strangely. No matter."
The Hellknight shifted himself, his vapor body rippling. "As for yonder vault. Why should I let you plunder it? Agent of the crown you may be, but our secrets are our own. Mayhap it has taken two centuries for the throne to be bold enough to plumb our hidden places, but that does not give them any more right. The crown should know this, unless the Orders have grown soft these past years."
The glaive in his hand does not waver, looking quite deadly despite being presumably as solid as mist. Novox knew such weapons could bite.
"Maybe I should defend this final hold of my Order, and guard our hidden treasures against intruders?"
Novox could see, behind the words, this was not a threat but an invitation. An invitation to negotiate.
Like a tear in the nation's proud banner, Novox's patient veneer was marred ever so slightly by offence as the specter tossed aside his courteous sympathies. He did not give one iota whether the hellknight's mind along with his manners had been marred by the malignant negative energy of his current form; this was not behavior that did credit to a proper Chelishman. And more importantly, no one rejected Narsus Novox.
Nevertheless, he maintained his civil bearing (determined to be, if nothing else, the better man) and upon the ghost's swift apology generously shook his head: no excuse was necessary. "I cannot possibly understand, Sir, only sympathize. We shall speak nothing of it."
This magnanimity earned no real reward, however, as it so seldom does. The Egorian listened quietly to the shade's account of this plane and his order's fall therein, but it was a willfully sparse explanation. Novox's ever keen curiosity received little in the way of anything tangible. And the conversation soon shifted from the furtive to the hostile.
Sermon finalized, every syllable as hard as the steel in which the merciless knights garbed themselves, Novox awaited the specter's verdict. Was it all bluster? Was the spiel merely another of the grand manipulator's many? Yes and no. He was hoping to manipulate the ghost, of course. But the words represented deception interwoven truth like a snake circling a pure ingot. At their core was the reason why the Hellknight had earned the diabolist's respect, no mean feat given his lofty standards.
"As for yonder vault. Why should I let you plunder it?"
It was a moment before the phantom received any reply. For a brief spell the wizard's eyes, stolid as any statue's and betraying no fear, thoughtfully roved the blurred form of the deceased's weapon. It was the only sign of him having even perceived the knight's implied threat. "Why?" he then asked. "Because you are and remain a Hellknight. Because your first and highest responsibility has always been to protect the realm from chaos. Because it is your duty. That is why you will allow me entry to the vault."
Knowledge and understanding being two separate concepts entirely, there were a great many foolhardy academics in the world who boasted of their great repertoire of learning at any occasion, but upon scrutiny showed no understanding of their subjects. They knew the dates, the numbers, the names behind their chosen topic. But the why, the how, the soul behind it eluded them. Narsus Novox knew he was no such scholar. And one of the topics he thought himself to grasp as fully as any outsider could was the mindset of the Hellknight. He would have this ghost dancing to his tune.
"At the close of the Civil War, when the united Hellknight orders backed House Thrune in its conquest of the nation, Queen Abrogail asked Lictor Jaisade of the Scourge for a small favor. Well, I say a favor, but that was of course not the case. She asked him, in full view of her new court, to turn the Scourge into her personal honor guard. Not a favor, but a benefaction unto them. She was, to all appearances, bestowing a great reward onto the band of knights. This was to be the grand bounty their loyalty to the new infernal crown earned them. It was a position that many would have envied. Do you know what the good Lictor replied? Of course you do. I have no doubt that this anecdote is taught and retaught every recruit in your secretive citadels a hundred times over, so that its lesson might never be lost. He told the new queen to go f*ck herself. Not in those exact words, I'm sure. I'm sure the Lictor was a civil man. But that was both the meaning and effect of his words."
Novox paused, both to let his words sink in and for dramatic effect. He was so very fond of his pregnant pauses. "Lictor Jaisade refused to compromise on his ideals and vows to turn his order into Abrogail's lap dogs, even knowing as he did that refusing the new queen could mean his death. In fact, I much suspect that he wasn't altogether fond of the devil-binding monarch. But he, along with the other orders, put her in power anyway. You already know why, once again. The Hellknights ignored any personal distaste for the woman they might have harbored for their cause, the cause they were willing to sacrifice any- and everything for: order. The nation was at war with itself, and a nation in civil war not only has no order, it cannot have any order. Laws are void and mean nothing. Brother fights brother for food and shelter as officials can only look on, the offices that granted them power already burning. Civil war represents a world where might is not only right, it is all. A world of chaos. Such a state is intolerable to any righteous man. And so it was that the Hellknight chose to, had to, back whatever person most likely to take the throne, to restore order. At any cost. That is why I am here, Sir Caesus. Because our lands have sunk into civil war once again, as they did in your own time."
Novox did not pause for long this time before continuing, grave and resplendent as any church organ. "You say you 'know my kind,' Hellknight. Supercilious bureaucrats, ineffective at best and self-serving at worst. I reiterate: the Crown has never had an agent like me. For one, there presently is no Crown. I strive for what remains of the kingdom to make our fractured nation whole again, to restore order. To do so I have surmounted no small danger in coming here, to that vault. An item within holds the potential to ensure a key alliance that would go a long way in securing the country. So it is that I say that not only should you grant me access, it is your sworn duty to do so."
Sermon finalized, every syllable as hard as the steel in which the merciless knights garbed themselves, Novox awaited the specter's verdict. Was it all bluster? Was the spiel merely another of the grand manipulator's many? Yes and no. He was hoping to manipulate the ghost, of course. But the words represented deception interwoven truth like a snake circling a pure ingot. At their core was the reason why the Hellknight had earned the diabolist's respect, no mean feat given his lofty standards.
The visage of an undead specter is not an easy face to read, even for someone as talented as Novox. Many of the usual 'tells', such as heart rate, breathing patterns and nervous tics, simply don't exist. The dead don't become nervous. Even worse, their bodies are a transparent blur, barely matter at all.
And yet, they are a thinking being, a rational mind. And such a mind must react. It was an immutable law of nature.
And so Novox saw those reactions. Some of what he said, meant little to the Hellknight. The appeal to the throne itself didn't seem to matter much to Sir Caesus (or the shade that stood for him) and Novox's personal remarks seem to flow off the man like water off a rock. but the appeal to order in the name of Cheliax...the mention of civil war shook him. Novox was sure.
His words though, were calm if filled with a weariness beyond mortal ken. "Civil war? The wheel turns without end, then."
The vaporous body ripples against, as if disturbed. It slowly settles down, the distinct form become more solid again. "As for my oath, does death not release me from it? Some would argue it, and I have considered it myself for long years. Perhaps."
"But the words are carefully chosen, Narsus Novox and hit close to the mark. Whatever else may be happening, the Crown chose you well. It is not easy to bargain with a ghost."
"So then, hear this. I will do as you ask. I will let you pass, to explore the vault, learn what you will and even take what you wish. Yes, all of this. But I desire something in exchange."
Then the ghost seems to grow, in both size and power. A cold wind seems to fill the room and the Hellknight's voice is freezing as a the tomb.
"Release me"
Then the moment passes and Sir Caesues relaxes, "The wards that my Order placed on this building prevent my spirit from leaving. The Grady Lady calls but I am held here, like a lightning bug trapped in a child's jar. Destroy the wards, I shall leave, and you path clear."
'Does death not release me from my oath?' A crack in Novox's dignified veneer showed dumb surprise, even confusion, glowering beneath. These were sentiments the proud Egorian was loath to ever express, and yet the specter's wistful notion was one so strange, so foreign, to him that he could not help but look in bewilderment. Giving up on one's stated goals? Ludicrous. A man was nothing but his ambition. Ambition was no obligation so much as it was one's reason for being. Death no more released a lucid ghost from its aspirations than passing through a doorway released a hedgehog of its bristly hide: it could not change who you were. The statement was nonsense. But then a certified obsessive such as Narsus Novox could never understand the notion of a distasteful duty, ironically enough. To his diseased mind ambition, want, need and pleasure were all one.
Obsessive that he was, however, he tempered his tongue in the interest of diplomacy and was soon rewarded for it upon the deceased agreeing to his terms. His only condition sparked fresh revelation within the wizard.
"Ah," he said in recognition, as an academic hitting upon the solution to some minor conundrum. "The wards are what keep your spirit here. Yes, of course. I have already had some small trouble with said abjuration. Very well. I shall happily aid you, Sir Caesus."
If destroying the wards meant circumnavigating the haunt, then Novox would have done so regardless of the apparition's wishes. After all, if the only thing holding it here was this magic, then it couldn't stop him entering the vault once gone anyway. "You wouldn't happen to know where the nexus of runework maintaining the spell is? I ask in the interest of expediency, you see. I have no doubt I can manage to find it myself, but be warned that doing so will likely take some time."
He added. "Although I'm sure two centuries have taught you patience." The diabolist wondered. Was there opportunity here? Upon locating the source of the ward, could he blackmail more information out of the ghost via threats of not releasing it? It was something to consider.
The ghost rises in the air and bows toward Novox, "Then we can both achieve our aims. You get my Order's secrets and I can finally achieve my final rest. A fair trade." A short pause and then, Caesus adds, "Since we seem to be caught up in a tide of goodwill, let me add this. Some sections of the vault are likely locked closed. There are sections inside that are virtually sealed against all intrusions. They may be un-openable, even if you were to gain entrance. Just a word of warning."
"As for the wards, I was no spellcaster but I believe the central nexus could be found on the threshold of main doors. Metal runes carved into the floor. We were told that even superficial physical damage to the words could disrupt the wardings. I doubt it will be a challenge to such a...unique servant of the Crown."
"Then I shall be with you again shortly," Novox replied with a curt nod in departure, turning with a great whoosh of his cape in setting out for the foyer. He halted to speak over his shoulder after only a step, however. "But then, we are unlikely to ever see each other again once this little errand of mine is completed. In which case I wish you safe travels to your final rest, whatever form it may take."
And with that the footfalls resumed as the wizard went to work. There was always time for a bit of courtesy, he reasoned. It was so very cheap, after all, when contrasted to its efficiency. If it could lull the ghost into a false sense of security should he decide upon holding its afterlife ransom, this would be particularly worth the price.
The ghost pauses and then bows shortly, flickering tendrils of phantasmal aura bleeding off into the ether.
"And the same to you, Narsus Novox, servant of the Crown. May you serve our land well, and perhaps the secrets of my Order can help the current crisis. I, and my brothers, will rest easy if that is the case."
Novox and Hax make their way out of the inner chamber and back into the foyer, where the body of the wooden golem still lays. As soon as they are alone, Hax says bluntly, "Do you trust him?"
Seeing Novox's look the man holds up a hand, "I have nothing but respect for the dead, but still. Your countrymen are not famous for their honesty and cooperation. Could removing these wards have other effects then what our floating friend mentioned?"
As they talk Novox reaches the massive steel doors, that make the imposing entrance. His eyes and magical sense sweep the area, reaching into the arcane world that hide just behind the material plane. That endless vista of power and magic, the intricate tapestry that undergird every spell.
He could see them, like lines of yarn on a weaver's loom, all concentrated to this point, focused on the doors. Along the floor the steel runes were visible, happily being locked inside when the doors are closed. This makes sense, why would you place your wards outside, where any foes could disable them?
A small amount of study reveals that disabling the wards would not be hard for Novox. Disrupting the runes themselves would do most of the work, and a few simple twitches of the arcane fabric would destroy the rest. Novox detects there were traps and counter-measures but had long faded away, not being etched in steel like the wards themselves. Without that anchor, the spells that guarded the wards simply dissolved.
"Do you trust him?"
Novox regarded his companion with predictable reproof at the query. "Do you trust your ability to take on the centuries-old echo of a ranking Hellknight, his mind and skill untarnished by death? No? Then trust is irrelevant and a dearth of options forces our hand."
Dismissive as the response was, there was little bite to the diabolist's tongue, however. He was, after all, more so disappointed with himself at being caught with no avenues beyond trusting the ghost. This was not a situation befitting the smartest man in Cheliax. "Disregarding your small-minded, not to mention slanderous, opinion of my countrymen," he went on at the mercenary's postulating, his footfalls every bit as level, patient and determined as he seemed to be in carrying out the task before them, "if the specter has any hopes in our disrupting these wards beyond his own release into the afterlife, I couldn't distinguish them. And even should it - he - have any such hidden aspirations, I fail to see what he could hold dearer than his own eternity. We may have little choice but to rely on his word, but he is similarly dependent on us. Without us he is likely to suffer these walls for another two centuries."
Having reached the brobdingnagian outer doors, Novox transitioned from speech to arcane formulations with practiced ease, intoning the cantrip that would allow him to sense the latent magical emanations that irradiated all of existence. "As for the abjurations being tied to some secondary function of the facility, this is a distinct possibility and one that does you credit to consider. And that is precisely why I recommend you divert yourself with finding the most comfortable piece of rubble here. Have a seat, Hax. I'll be taking my time with this."
Standing immediately before the massive steel portal that was the door frame, the wizard spread out his arms and opened his mind's eye to the mystical. Immediately the gateway exploded into color, a thousand scintillating spell strands crisscrossing it like the web of some great spider gone mad in its own genius. Novox could see them, every thread a deliberate arcane construction trailing from one etched rune to another, frayed and worn yet defying the cruel passage of time nonetheless. It was admirable, even beautiful in its ingenuity. Novox so rarely allowed himself to ponder the abstracts of magical theorem. Being humanity's salvation was rather demanding of his schedule. It was therefore with some relish that he settled in for some proper theory crafting; he wasn't unwinding this yarn before he understood every hook, loop and stitch of it.
"Hax," the Egorian finally said, breaking his stock-still statue like stare into the ether. "Would you be so kind as to cleave that rune there?" One long finger pointed to an old etching, seemingly little more than a dust bowl. "The one that looks like two arrows interlocked."
Hax pulls up a pile of rubble and drapes a slightly burned tapestry onto it, making a reclining seat. With the air of a man who has relaxed among worse ruins, the fighter spreads out, hands behind his head. He peers at the dark ceiling and mutters, "If only I had some qat..."
Novox meanwhile falls into the study of the intricate wards of the Hellknight fortress. They are excellent examples of the craft, and more tightly woven (to push an analogy beyond the breaking point) then nearly any others he has seen. Clearly the overriding priority had been stability and durability, during their construction. The wards themselves are fairly straight forward, blocking any type of planar travel, communication or detection as well as most forms of divination. Despite this simplicity however, they were incredibly strong and Novox had not met the wizard or encountered the artifact yet that could have overcome them with brute force.
The wizard carefully examines the intricate threads of arcane power not just for traps but other interactions. Did these wards connect to other safeguards or other functions? Would disrupting them upset some other balance? Novox knew of entire buildings who were held up by magic alone, where the physical buttresses and walls were mere cosmetic dressing. The fabled Womb of Thorns, the largest temple in Cheliax, in Eorgian was one of them. Would this entire building come crashing down if Novox altered these wards?
Apparently not. Novox could not detect them serving any other purpose then those he divined. Very well.
Hax strode over, and stared at the metal for a bit. "It better not notch my sword, Novox." he grumbled, before drawing the glittering weapon in a single fluid motion. A pause and then he dropped it in a motion that has much unstoppable certainty as a headsman's axe.
It rang on the ancient runed steel, sending up a tiny shower of blue sparks. A harsh gash appeared, biting into the delicate magical writing. To his other sense Novox could detect the magical wards flickering, wavering then unraveling at breathtaking speed. It was like a child had grabbed a loose thread of a shirt and then sprinted with it. The wizard watched it unravel and unwind with both satisfaction at a jump well done and a pang of sadness for something of such craft destroyed.
In a moment it is gone, the wards a mere imprint of magical memory.
"The hour for my judgement has come at last." A cold voice said from behind them. Turning Novox say Sir Caesus floating there, helmet hiding his face. "Thank you and may you find peace in your own reckoning." With that, he dissolved, and became a cold breeze that passed through Novox, Hax and the two locked steel doors.
Novox was just shrugging this distinctly unpleasant feeling away when he sensed something else. Something in the strange world of magical interaction. It was like a sleeping man who, leaning against a door, suddenly found his support removed. A stumbling, surprised feeling of growing interest. It was distant....then it was gone.
What had that been?
Reckoning? Novox's stately features were drawn into a frown as the clammy breath of undeath passed through him, the Hellknight finally fading beyond this world, whatever it was. His displeasure was more so in the ghost's final words, however. Finding peace in one's own reckoning? No, that was not the diabolist's fate. He had consigned his own eternity away upon signing the devils' infernal contract. There was not to be any peace for him. Such was not his lot. He was not the reckonee but the reckoner. He was what would befall every political enemy of his in Cheliax. He was the doom of every nation that would defy his glorious reconstituted empire. He was the cliff on which the emissaries of all the heavens would dash themselves in opposing his unified humanity. And finally, he would be the end of the world to devilkind - armageddon. Oh, there was a reckoning coming, yes. But it would not be his. And he would not know peace before he had the broken God-Fiend at his feet.
It was these thoughts that came to a sudden halt, intellect interrupting pride, at that faintest of sensations, that most inexplicable of impressions that one might dismiss in others but never in oneself: the feeling of being watched. What was this? For the briefest of moments, Novox felt what he imagined goodly priests to feel, the intuition of there being a man in the sky watching down on him. Except he was not a god-fearing person. Far from it. He was a man of theory, cause and effect, a wizard at that. There were iron automatons less precise and coldly rational than himself. So why the sensation? What had...?
Aw, hells. It knew. The presence, the something. Hell's bells, it could see them and now it knew.
"Hax," he said quietly, still staring at the iron gates that up until now had been a great deal more than even their fearsome size suggested. "We have not been in any great rush on our sojourn so far. That changes now. Time is no longer our ally. Come along and be quick."
Novox turned on his leather-clad heel and marched for the vault. He wasn't worried, not truly. Not yet. Nor was he disappointed in himself. No, dismissing the wards had been an inevitable result of the obstacles thrown his way. Even with the full might of his spell repertoire at hand, he would still likely have bartered this trade with the ghost. But be this as it may, the fact remained that there was a something out there in this strange world now aware of him, and in all likelihood less than benign. That he had not one but two theories for what this something was, was only indicative of the hostile nature of this plane.
His first theory concerned the hive mind, the seemingly shared intellect he had guessed at in facing the wretched horde of ex-hellknights. A strange coordination among those otherwise mindless husks had hinted at something greater possessing them, something whose tendrils might have been kept at bay from this facility by the abjurations guarding it. The same abjurations he had now deactivated. It was a testament to his steady nerves (or more likely his titanic ego) that Novox was not overly concerned at this prospect. If this intellect chose to attack via its minions, he could manage. Those same spells still in his power inadequate against the undead were conversely plenty effective vs crowds. He was confident he could at least reach the portal out of here should this be the case.
No, the real problem lay in his second hypothesis: that the presence was in fact the 'force in the castle' the phantom had spoken of, newly awoken at his intrusion. The Hellknight had revealed nothing tangible about that power, and this was concerning. Novox did not enjoy the idea of facing a total unknown, especially an unknown entity previously responsible for wiping out an entire order of knights. Were these two shadowy intelligence perhaps one and the same? Had one morphed and shifted into the other over the centuries? Had one begotten the other? Pointless speculation, he had no data to work with. This was precisely the problem. He had nothing to do but finish his business here as soon as possible.
"Something out there knows we're here," the wizard offered by way of briefest of explanations to a questioning Hax in reaching the mighty vault door. "It would be prudent of us to leave with the artifact secured."
"Something covers a great deal, Novox." Hax replied, and the wizard noted his sword was unsheathed in his hand as they walked. The Chelishman, oddly, found the foot and a half of sharp metal to be a comfort. "Is it the blind men, or something else? Did the ghost betray us?"
Still, they don't stop to talk. Quickly they cross the foyer, stepping lightly over the shattered art remains, and into the vault entrance. Their is no sign of the incorporeal Hellknight and the imposing vault doors are slightly ajar. Novox wastes no time, and past the most cursory check his addled state allows for traps, they pass inside.
It is pitch-black inside and only the wizard's radiant rod lights the way. Shadows dance along the walls, flickering suggestions of movement. Hax's sword glitters like an icicle, cold and sharp, seemingly to be the only solid point in a realm of shadow. But they do not have far to go.
In short order they are in a small round room. Novox raises his rod, willing it to glow brighter. With a flare it reveals the entire interior. The floor is cold stone, engraved with words that seem to be Azlanti versions of the Order's Oath. The walls are bare and smooth, except for three closed doors, solid iron.
In the center of the room are three pedestals, waist high. On one lies half of a key. Half a key....Novox recalls the item found on a dead Hellknight back in Cheliax. Recalling it to mind, it becomes quickly apparent this is indeed the other half of that item.
On the other is a small glass vial, not much bigger then Novox's thumb. It is intricately made, carefully shaped into the spiraling comet. Comet? The holy symbol of Pharasma, the Gray Lady. The potion inside is a deep, rich gray.
Last but not least, on the center pedestal is a jagged yellow stone. It reminds Novox of amber, with the same soft rounded edges hinting at a organic nature yet hard as stone. It reflects back his arcane light, sending shards of yellow light throughout the round room.
'Well, any of these?" Hax says impatiently, looking around as if he expected any of the doors to burst open and reveal a dragon.
"Something, Hax. Something," the Egorian, not in his most charitable mood, answered his companion, swift feet never once stopping to oblige the latter's ignorance. "I am not given to speaking in riddles. If I knew it to be the wretches, then I would say so. When I say 'something' I refer not to everything beneath the heavens, but to an unknown quantity. While I do not expect you to understand the intricacies of magic, know that something just noticed us."
They passed the vault threshold and Novox held the monstrous museum-piece that served as his rod and lantern high to pierce the centuries old gloom within. "This is no cause for alarm," he said into the darkness, crisp capital accent reverberating off the vast stone chamber. "It merely calls for prudence."
In short order they reached the facility's central repository. And it did not disappoint. There it was, resting on a pedestal and ripe for the taking: the wizard recognized the amber-like artifact from his vision with a satisfied smirk. The mission was all but complete. Had there ever been any doubt that he was up to the task? Not bothering to answer the mercenary's query, Novox walked up to the plinth with confidence and no small amount of pleasure at the accomplishment. There he paused, however. While his conceit was vast, his intellect was no less powerful. What did he know of this stone? Precious little, he acknowledged in observing his own handsome form reflected in the deep-yellow material. The karek had been not exactly been forthcoming with details as to its nature. Did it represent any danger to him? No, likely not. In the vision he had seen a Hellknight commander hold it apparently without repercussion, and the fey sending him to retrieve an item capable of killing its courier was nonsensical. But then they were fey. In the end all the diabolist knew of the jewel was that Everpine considered it holy, again something revealed by the vision of its acquisition. This could be taken to mean anything or nothing at all.
But he had never balked at subjugating anything holy or unholy before, and he wasn't about to start doing so now, Novox considered in resolutely grabbing the artifact. There was no time for these reflections, not now. Which was not to say that there wouldn't be. Oh yes, he wasn't about to hand over this doodad to anyone before he had assured himself that it didn't represent a better deal than the one already on the table. To Hell with the fey if this stone offered more power than they were willing to lend. As for the other two pedestals...
Novox arched an eyebrow at seeing the second half of the key they'd found literally a world away. What? Why would a Hellknight possess one half of what was apparently an instrument the organization had deemed dangerous enough to lock away? This was strange, especially so given that he had determined the earlier piece to have some function with the planar gate here. So what was it? A hazardous artifact to be kept away from anyone, or a tool they used daily on their interplanar voyages? There was something he was missing here. Well, whatever it was, it wasn't pieces to the key. Still gripped by his eagerness to move on, the Egorian held both halves of it in each hand and slotted the head of the key onto its handle.
Nothing was quite so curious as the solemn little potion, however. A Pharasmin creation? Given that this most ancient of gods was chiefly concerned with such grave subjects as life, death and fate itself, this was tantalizing to say the least, especially if the Vice thought the innocuous liquid great enough to seal away. Only here did Novox pause. Did the expertly cut flask represent any immediate use to him? Had he heard of anything like it before?
Novox gives all three items a long hard stare, but he can see precious little. There were no obvious traps, like crude tripwires or something of that nature. To the best of his knowledge, he doesn't even see any pressure switches or something of that nature. Perhaps the Hellknights considered the vault protection enough? He judged from these items location, perhaps they were handled or studied often and such security features would have been troublesome. In any case he sees no danger and grabs the yellow stone first.
It flares slightly as his touch, sending cascading rays of light throughout the room, almost like a prism. But nothing else happens, at least that Novox can tell and he stows the item away in a fold of his knapsack. The wizard almost smiles when he hears Hax let out a tiny, almost inaudible sigh of relief.
The key is next, and without much expectation and more to keep the separate items together, snapped them together. There was a very tiny snick of metal on metal as the key seamlessly latched together, the key instantly becoming a solid piece to the eye. Novox was still looking down at it when he heard Hax curse.
Alarmed, Novox looked up sharply. Had their been some security feature after all? Then he saw it.
A portal had suddenly appeared in front of them. It was not an arch or door, for it had not outer shape, no lintel or frame. It was merely a slice of reality removed, like someone carving at reality with a knife. Through it he saw a very odd scene. He saw outside. Novox could see the strange trees and buildings outside the vault, the unmoving grass.
After a moment of effort Novox realized he was looking out through the main gate where they entered from Cheliax. The key could re-open the way to this strange demi-plane.
"Well now," the wizard spoke, calm as an Iroran ox even in the face of the bright phantasmagoria that was reality unfurling itself before him. "This is intriguing."
Intriguing, certainly, but no less worrying. He peered at the blurred forms of strange trees and squat buildings visible in the world tear, almost like seeing through a fish eye. Even with his blighted sight, Novox had little trouble recognizing the familiar scenery. So the key patched itself into the more powerful magical framework maintaining the Vice's planar gateway and utilized it to instantly open a portal that deposited one to the order's homestead via the aforementioned construction? Ingenious, not to mention exceedingly convenient. If indeed that was how the device worked.
Because while this hastily drawn notion of it represented an artifact of immeasurably value to any knights caught unprepared in the great cosmos and looking for a swift escape, the Egorian could imagine another function: that of establishing a colony. What if the key hadn't been designed to utilize the stationary gateway for a quick way home, but to create a more permanent link between two locations? What if it erased the previous destination coded into the gate, replacing it with wherever the key wielder stood, creating a tangible connection between the order's homestead and wherever they might please? One could build a stronghold on Mount Olympia itself, defying the angelic horde, if one invaded the heavens, picked a spot and simply defended it via constant reinforcements and resources gathered directly from one's home base. Such a device was a terrifying tool for conquest.
This latter understanding of the key was the more unlikely one, to be certain. But it was the one that worried Novox. Because if true, he had just erased the location of the material plane from the crystalline gateway and replaced it with this innocuous corner of the vault, stranding himself here. Well. This called for some testing. Yes, the adroit mind had already reasoned that if this latter interpretation should hold true, the planar tear before him had to be at least semi-permanent. What happened if he pulled the two parts of the key from each other again?
The diabolist pulled the metal pieces apart with an audible snap.
----------
Novox clicked the two halves of the key back together, and the world immediately tore itself asunder at his command. He looked into the gray landscape as seen through the gateway.
"Hax, my eyes still cannot focus. Can you see anything inauspicious on the other side? Something not there when we last saw this place? Anything at all, though do speak up if you notice a hundred Hellknight husks behind every tree."
If the device worked as surmised, then it was a remarkable aid to their exit from this plane. They would walk through this portal, close it, turn on their heels, and then walk into the gateway straight back to their own beloved and familiar Cheliax. What could go wrong?
Novox eyes the magical portal carefully as he pulls the small key in two. It gives easily under his fingers and with a sharp click, it breaks apart. The magical portal vanished from sight, flickering out of being with such totality it was hard to remember it had ever been there.
"Are you having fun with your new toy?" Hax whispered harshly, "Get on with it, wizard!"
Clearly someone was on edge.
Novox re-summons the portal back into being. Once again the magical doorway hovers in mid-air, revealing the strange landscape of the Hellknight camp. Novox asks Hax to look first, just in case they are walking in a trap.
The fighter snorts, looks quickly and snarls, "Nothing. Let's go before something else happens. Hurry!"
Novox peers at the portal and sees nothing untoward. It seems to be a simple, if rather convenient, planar portal. It is hard to see much from the sliver of rent reality but the wizard guesses it would function the same on any plane. This key would give Novox an instant doorway to this demi-plane at his command.
"Nothing. Let's go before something else happens. Hurry!"
Too late. Novox realized that the Rahadoumi spoke too late as a 'something else' was already occurring in the form of the almost tangible physic presence pressing onto his mind. Some might have denied the sudden sensation as a figment of the imagination, especially given the exigent situation, but not the wizard; he was too familiar with everything arcane. He felt the touch of the magic as keenly as a great silken veil passing over him. Unfortunately for its sender, Narsus Novox was not so easily swayed. Before the iron fortress that was his intellect, the mental intrusion truly had all the effect of a silken sheet, catching on every grinning gargoyle, tearing on every spiked steeple.
Nevertheless, he could not rest easy in his supremacy. Not yet. The Egorian suspected - nay, was certain - that this cerebral attack originated from that same presence he had felt earlier, whatever it was. If so, both its sight and touch were greater than he had hoped, and while this attempt at influencing him had failed, there was no telling whether it couldn't simply try, try again. Or what was arguably worse, give up on him and latch onto simpler prey; he looked to Hax. Yes, the primitive brain of a mercenary, concerned as it was with little more than the prime animal drives of fighting, feeding and fornicating, would be much easier to conquer. They should leave. Now.
"Right behind you, Hax," Novox responded.
"Right behind you, Hax," Novox responded.
At these innocuous words the usually phlegmatic fighter whirled, turning on his heels with liquid speed. His sword came up in a defensive posture, dancing with reflected light from both Novox's shining shaft and the portal.
"Behind me?" The man says, breathing deep when confronted with nothing but the wizard. There is a flare in his eyes that tells Novox Hax is not himself.
Then the fire dies and he takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Good idea. Let's go." And with that the Rahadoumi leads the way through the hovering portal. In a moment Novox follows after, leaving the dark of the vault behind, exchanging it for the strange fixed 'sunlight' of the outdoors.
Soon Novox is standing right outside the imposing 'main gate' where they entered from Cheliax. The terrain looks mostly the same, a collection of Chelish stone buildings, crushed crystal glass, all overlooked by sinister trees.
"That's new." Hax says, his voice once again the usual half-growl. He gestures with his sword around the edge of the gate, a space out of the field-of-view they pursued from the vault.
It was a pile of black goo and ichor, mashed beyond all form. It was as if a giant had stepped on an oversized mushroom, grinding it into pulp. Or perhaps sliced it with savage claws, for their are jagged rents through mushroom like caps and gills. Tangles of purple filaments rise out of the noxious pile, feebly twitching. Dark motes of pollen hover around the battered remains, and they reek with the sweet scent of rot.
Whatever it was, one thing was sure. It was dead. Very dead.
"Later Novox, this is no time to sight-see." Hax says and his voice is tight with stress and concern. He points to the gate behind them, which is a black pit, revealing nothing of its destination.
And there it was, as if by clockwork. Novox watched as whatever dim light that passed for the mercenary's intellect was subsumed by a foreign force, the psychic tendril of their unknown assailant seeking out easier prey now after being repelled by his own mighty mind, just as he had predicted. Curse his genius! Could he only be wrong for once.
But just as he considered how best to dispatch his ex-companion, the wizard was pleasantly surprised as Hax seemed to shake off the influence. Huh. Perhaps the presence, whatever it was, was not so fearsome after all. Either that or it was having an off day. Compelling an unsophisticated brute such as the Rahadoumi should not be so difficult. Then again, he considered in recalling the sensation of Hax's fist colliding with his own face, the man could be willful. Bah, what did it matter? They needed to leave this accursed place, now. And the portal helped greatly in this endeavor. In a mere three steps the gloom of the vault was replaced with the somehow just as listless sunlight of forest; they were out and scant feet from the gateway back to Cheliax.
Here something demanded his attention, however.
"That's new."
It certainly was. Novox cast a hard gaze onto the remains of what appeared to have been an enormous, now very flattened, fungus, scrutinizing them. It didn't take an intellect like his to make some inferences. How was this mold creature related to the Hellknight husks, in whose innards he had found similar growth? Was this the hive mind he had postulated to be guiding them? And most notably, what had befallen it?
"Later Novox, this is no time to sight-see."
Questions that would have to wait, perhaps indefinitely. This ghastly world was growing less safe by the second. "Don't breathe in the spores," he said by way of reply, more so guessing at these seeds' presence than actually seeing them; his ruined sight couldn't make out something so fine. "Shield your mouth and nose as you pass it." Leading by example, the Egorian brought his own sleeve up to conceal his face, and thusly ran for the inky black gateway.
Oh, the wonders of planar travel. It was the strangest sensation on the skin, even discounting the feeling of stepping in the impossible nothing between realities. In one moment the insistent chill of the blighted world was gone and replaced with the marginally more welcoming cool of the crypt: they were back in the grand mosaic chamber home to the Vice's gateway. They had done it. They had escaped. Well, Novox was rather inclined to call his first extraplanar excursion a rollicking success, hasty retreat included. Fascinating as he found the greater multiverse, he looked forward to the inevitable day he wielded enough arcane might to tear his own way through it. And this tool, he thought in looking at the innocuous key resting on his palm, was a very fine start to his otherworldly efforts indeed. It gave a satisfying snap as he split its two halves with a a little flourish.
It was in this wave of relief and confirmation of his supremacy that the diabolist felt it. It wasn't just his skin adapting to an all-new atmosphere; his mind, that iron bastion that had so recently repelled alien invaders, felt... a breach. Immediately upon reentering the Material Plane, something was pressing onto his mind. What was this? Had the force followed them here? Impossible! But before he could deduce anything further, the mystery unfurled itself. This was no breach in his mental defenses. No, as the presence slotted itself into his soul as securely as the two halves of the key might, he recognized it for what it was: this was no invader to his mind-palace, but a house-guest. How familiar. He had almost forgotten that empty space where he had once been. Now it was inhabited again by something new yet familiar. These were not the cinders belching their acrid smoke, as the presence of the imp-who-was-not-to-be-named had so often felt like in the back of his head. These were... candlelights. A related, but softer sensation. Novox had a new familiar.
"It is good to meet you, Master Novox."
Shedding her invisibility, there she was, sitting cross-legged and proper on an upturned thin shell of rust that had once been a sword. Small as she might be, it should not have been able to support her. The imp was russet-skinned, yellow-eyed and horned. In these respects she was as imps most. More unusually, however, she was a she, this being less common among devilkind. The lithe form, built for flying, was still undeniably womanly beneath the dark scrap of silk she wore from her shoulder, almost like a toga. A clothed imp? The Egorian's dark eyes narrowed. He did not appreciate these distinctions. They pointed to someone supposing themselves an individual, someone headstrong, and this was a trait that had not served his previous slave well.
"You've been waiting," he replied. "You arrived here quickly. Your predecessor perished a scant hour ago." The words were blunt and intentionally so.
"Ah, but time is relative as you well know." It was a strangely deep voice for such a small creature, and pleasant where her precursor's had been so rough. "Hell is nothing if not a efficient bureaucracy. Our book keepers mostly inhabit realities experiencing time much swifter than the Prime Material. Why, they almost knew of your previous familiar's passing before you did. Rather extravagant means of dispatching him, by the by. I was impressed."
Oh hells, was this what he was in for? Was the Pit changing tactics with him and trying to flatter their way to his soul? "Spare me the blarney, imp. You are only here because of my contract, and it is the only reason I tolerate your presence."
"Yes, Master Novox. I shall endeavor to be worthy of you," she smiled, not missing a beat. He didn't like that smile one bit. "I can only hope you forgive me my failures, and edify me so that I might correct them."
So this was how it was going to be, huh? Sarcasm and ironic affectation where there had been crass jokes and upbraidings. Hell still hadn't gotten the message, and this after he had made it so very clear for them. For a moment Novox was sorely tempted to take the imp and march right back through the gateway, to murder it and then however many of its siblings it took for the Pit to understand that he was not to be disrespected. And then his rational mind conceded: perhaps this was tolerable. Perhaps a fiend that followed orders, even if only wryly, was as much as could be hoped for, for now.
"...We're finished here. We're leaving," he simply said, and began walking the ancient battlefield for the exit.
"If I may." The tiny fiend alighted, the rust eaten sword beneath her exploding into a constellation of red flakes at the motion. In the next second her crimson hide had sprouted black feathers and a raven flew through the air. "It would be a great pleasure to claim your shoulder, Master. That is your custom, is it not?"
He looked to her avian form. "You..."
"I studied your file extensively, Master Novox, and thought it best to adopt this guise. Your more ignorant enemies believe you to have a raven for a familiar, no? No reason to clue them in on anything having changed."
Novox did not respond. But neither did he object when the feather-clad devil landed on his shoulder. He resumed walking.
"Are you going to ask me my name?"
The query, while polite enough, was notably direct. "You are an imp, nothing more though arguably less than even that ignoble moniker implies. I shall address you as imp."
"Of course, sir, but should I ever earn the great honor of hearing it uttered by your noble lips, know that my name is Beloreth." The bird turned its head towards the mercenary. "Though you can call me Belle, handsome."
Having a raven wink at you was a fairly strange experience.
The weight on Novox's shoulder felt both familiar and worrisome, like the ache of an old wound, long thought banished. While the imp served him, Novox had enjoyed that brief period of time, when his mind had been entirely his own.
And right on cue, Belle's soft voice echoed in his mind palace, "A formidable mind, master.". Even devoid of mannerism or intonation, the slight sarcasm managed to present itself. "Very well protected. It will take me some time to learn its workings and mechanism, to serve you best." Then, far too politely, "Your senses...you are damaged?"
Meanwhile, outside...Hax grunted sourly at the avian form.
"Imps." The sun-tanned fighter seemed to have recovered from his mental confusion on the other plane, and he had sheathed his sword. Hax's boots were quiet on the rust-strewn floor, and he moved with his economy of movement.
"Although I think hell is wasting their time with a woman on you, Novox." he turns to face Belle directly, face hard. "A word to the wise, devil. Novox is tempted by many things, but a pretty face will get you nowhere. The flattery is a better approach."
A pause as they begin climbing the worn stairs, leading up the surface. The chill air of the basement wafts behind them, rising along the stony walls. Ahead, Novox can just make out the soft midnight black of the sky ahead, real sky. Tiny stars dance on the edge of his damaged sight, barely visible.
"But do not try and ensnare me in your wiles, or I'll forget my contract and Novox will have to apply for yet another minion."
Then they reach the top of the stairs, and find themselves surrounded by the quiet night of the Chelish countryside. A warm night breeze tugs at Novox's cloak and ruffles Bell's feathers. She preens slightly, beak dipping among the glittering feathers. Distant trees creak in the silence, and the scents of growing things fills Novox's nose. He had spent so long in sterile places, he had forgotten how vibrant the living world was.
Eslih would make a druid of him yet.
As the joke passes through his mind (along with that hazy memory of the druid), Belle seizes on it.
"A woman?" The imp says mentally, "A beautiful one too. My master has good taste.".
Novox would have to re-learn to guard his thoughts. Once again his singular mind was a castle under siege by a tenacious and clever foe.
Then he distracted from further thoughts, when Hax grunts, "Novox, focus." The shadowy man points ahead, and the wizard peers through the gloom.
Just ahead of the entrance there is a white table, set among the tumbled stones of the ruins. It gleams softly in the moonlight, looking entirely out of place, which it should be. It had not been here when they arrived. There are two, occupied chairs, behind it.
In one sits a small humanoid figure that Novox recognizes. Moonlight seems to ripple off iridescent feathers, and a liquid eyes are bright in the dark. The kerak.
The other chair is occupied by a different person entirely. It is man-high, spindly thin with wiry muscles. It's head is a bare skull of a caribou, gleaming as white as the polished table in the pale light. The long arms end in wicked claws of bone, slowly clenching and unclenching. It wears wrappings of ragged fur sown with scrimshaw talismans which rattle as it shifts, clearly unused to chairs or furniture of any kind.
It was an Ijiraq a rare form of fey usually reserved for the cold northern wastes. They delight in confusing and bedeviling travelers, leading them to their doom with false trails. This humanoid form was uncommon, for most Ijiraq preferred to go in the shape of an elk, to better confuse their quarry. The source of Novox's current aliments is revealed.
"You have been successful." the keraks soft, old voice carries quite clearly. "This is well. Come, join us at the table. It is time for us to hold debate, among the....remnants of man." The bird-man seems to smile, "To use your own phrase."
Curious. So very curious. Regal as any emperor in posture, Novox stood before the vertical pool of ink they had just stepped through, scrutinizing it one last time before departing the ruins. The dark surface did not reflect his glorious self, brilliant though it was. Why was it that the blighted plane's inhabitants did not seem to use it? While not working as intended, the gateway performed perfectly well as a means between the Prime Material and that unknown corner of reality. So why no giant fungi here? Why no hellknight husks hunting for prey? Why no oppressive force reaching out to touch unsuspecting minds? Curious.
The why of this was less important than the certainty of knowing that such an invasion was not imminent, to be sure, but the wizard was of the inquisitive sort. Any decent practitioner of magic was. Two hypothesis erected themselves within the adroit mind. The obvious explanations were that said inhabitants either could not or simply did not want to leave their own reality. The latter interpretation might apply to something like a mindless mushroom creature, but the former? Was it possible that the physic presence was somehow confined to its own world? If so, this was reassuring. And might present a key leverage against it in any further excursions to that sterile place, Novox thought in gently toying with one half of the interplanar key in his palm.
A soft laughter, almost a girlish giggle, interrupted his thoughts. 'Oh, excuse me, Master,' the newly arrived imp said within his head, not really sounding all that apologetic. 'I was just delighting in observing your mental faculties at work first-hand. They are humbling, truly.'
He sighed, heavily, the sort of sigh one lets out in lieu of breaking something. It had been all of three minutes and already the tiny devil's over-exaggerated fawning and polite preening was getting to him. To think there would ever come a time when he would miss the traitor's crass vulgarity. At least that had been simple to ignore as beneath his noble self. Only his masterful sense of restraint stopped him from reprimanding his new familiar immediately, and thereby admitting her influence on him, giving her the edge in this intricate interplay of spiritual supremacy they navigated. Yes, he was Narsus Novox, the prodigy, the genius. He would manage.
'Have you considered concealing that forehead vein?' Never mind, this wasn't working. 'I only want you to look your most resplendent, Master.'
The parade of flattery and oh-so-innocent observations, all deftly dancing the knife's edge between deference and condescension, continued as the duo once again turned trio walked the lengthy stairs out of the underground chamber. It was with no small amount of chagrin that the Egorian realized his mental defenses had grown lax and needed fortifying, Beloreth picking out weaknesses, enmities and capabilities all the way with barely concealed pleasure. The insinuation at any attraction towards the nature witch Eslih in particular nearly saw him missing a step. The distraction that followed from the mercenary was frankly welcomed.
"I think hell is wasting their time with a woman on you, Novox. A word to the wise, devil. Novox is tempted by many things, but a pretty face will get you nowhere."
Had this been intended as a veiled insult against his self-imposed chastity? Pah, to hear fools talk! Novox saw little more than an unwitting compliment in the words. Of course men dominated by their humors such as Hax could not appreciate the discipline with which he conducted himself. Narsus Novox's genius stood supreme! As if he would ever allow the urges of the flesh, even his own, to supersede his ultimate will. The very idea was abhorrent. Nothing could be allowed to meddle with the near godly intellect of humanity's savior, least of all the base animal urge to mate. It was below him. Novox was a responsible messiah.
It was all these lofty, impossible ideas and more, however, that made the devil's reply all the more appalling to him.
"Why, Hax! You find me pretty?" The mock excitement lifting the mellifluous voice another pitch was obviously false, and especially bizarre coming from a raven's gullet. "Oh no, what's a girl to do, torn between two handsome bachelors...? No, I'm afraid it cannot be, dear. I'm spoken for, you see." The bird turned its beak to look at the conjurer on whose shoulder she was sitting, pretend adoration in its black eyes. "There's only one man for me. And you should know that there's no loyalty like a devil's to their better. As for me 'ensnaring you in my wiles', well..."
A speculative surreptitiousness entered her tone. "Should Master Novox consent, I would not be opposed to some ensnaring of our wiles. In such an event, I hope you find me adequate. But then any man who propositions a woman measuring all of twenty inches must harbor some insecurities about his own adequacy."
The barb was delivered with all the innocence of a cloistered nun. Perhaps this Beloreth wasn't truly so different from her predecessor, the diabolist found himself thinking. Then again, he considered, this was a tactic that ignoble fiend who was not to be named had never tried: setting the Rahadoumi against him. Brief as their relationship was, Novox was nevertheless not blind to the imp's ministrations, positively magisterial social manipulator that he was himself. He thought he saw an inkling of her stratagem. "I jest, Hax, my dear, I jest," the raven laughed all the while her master scoffed within his own quiet mind - what remained of it that was wholly his. A pitiful scheme destined to fail for the simplest of reasons, that being that he was Narsus Novox and Hax was not. Even should it come to fruition, the mercenary could not best him and was as expendable from his life as the devil. If necessary he would expunge them both. With extreme prejudice.
But all these dark ruminations had to be pushed aside once they reached the night sky, however. For what awaited him there awoke no small amount of anticipation in addition to requiring his full attention. He gave a small smile at the sight. The table, seemingly carved out of moonlight, promised a pivotal discussion.
'Not another sound from you, imp,' he warned the familiar in striding forward without a word, hands at his back, majestic in his movement as the greatest sonnets of the nation. The imp did not respond in either thought or voice. Good. Reaching the setting of their fated conference, he stood tall and considered the two seated orators with a patient and practiced gaze. The kerak he knew. And the bone strewn man-creature was not unfamiliar to him either, Novox soon realized. The miscreant who had stolen his vision. So much the better.
Allowing the feather-clad sage to speak, all the gregariousness and composure demanded of his office clear to see on his stolid bearing, the Egorian merely listened as proceedings were opened. And then - as the proverbial ball was passed to his corner - as the fey awaited his humble greetings and thanks demanded of ceremony - he said nothing. Novox merely remained as he was, as if waiting for something himself. Silence. Only when the karek's beak opened to speak again, exactly the moment he had stood prepared to interrupt, did he inquire, politely as ever:
"...Are you going to offer me a seat?"
There. Only two seats. In one reasonable query the hosts had been established as negligent, the visiting party's patience and virtue demonstrated, the balance of interpersonal power swung in his favor. Perfect. Ah, politics. He had missed them more than he realized.
As Novox approaches the table, he eyes the two seated figures. They may not be men, and his eyes may be cloudy but this is not the wizard's first negotiation. Long experience had taught him that intelligence of his foes would aid him more then anything else. What was the balance of power here, not just between himself and the fey but between the kerak and the Ijiraq. Was there leverage between them?
Oh my, yes.
A single glance told Novox volumes. The tension between the two was palpable, a sizzling energy hanging in the air. The two fey may be sitting seemingly at ease, but latent violence seemed to surround them like auras. Outright hatred only barely controlled by custom and tradition. It reminded Novox of a backroom poker game between rival gangs members. Sure, the game might have rules but the chance of chaos breaking out was very, very high. Neither fey might like him, but each loathed the other on a level only immortals could udnerstand.
Then, to Novox's surprise Hax leans toward his ear. Usually the fighter left such things to Novox, understanding his role as strong arm.
"Are you sure you wish to tryst with these creatures? They will ensare you in webs of lies, Novox." The athiest says.
Tryst? The archaic word makes the wizard raise an eyebrow but fair enough. The wizard is about to enter into dealings with wild fey during the witching hour. Under a full moon no less. The word seems fitting.
'Is he always so cowardly?' Belle asks in the vaults of his mind. 'And insolent?'
"Are you weary, human?" The kerak asks mildly. "We shall try to keep your interest then, to forget tired feet and aching back."
The fey straightens slightly, turning one bright eye on Novox like an old raven eyeing a new type of beetle it intended to devour.
"As I told you, we have found you upon your return." The kerak goes on, voice clear in the cool summer night air. "But as you can see, I am not alone." The bord-man gestures tot he Ijiraq, who remains motionless, giving no indication it even heard the other fey. Instead the empty eye sockets of the skull seem to focus entirely on Novox.
"He knew of your errand but did not...agree bestowing it on you. For reasons too many to discuss with mortals, he sought to dissuade your attempt." A faint smile seems to form on the feathered face, "But I see you have overcome his obstacles."
Unlike Bill, Belle has no reaction to the poor pun.
"However, we seem to be at an impasse. I desire to conclude our deal, take the Sacred Stone, and enter into our alliance. This one," another gesture, "Would prefer to kill you and take the stone for himself. We found each other in this place, both waiting for you."
"But instead of doing so, we have come to an agreement. We will make our respective cases, in open debate, so that you may choose." A pause and then, "Although considering my counterpart does not speak your tounge I may be forced to translate."
He looks directly at the Ijiraq and smiles.
Then the skull-headed fey moves for the first time, reaching into his filthy, grimy rags. After much shuffling and clacking of ornament, he brings forth an old femur. The bone is pitted with age, white as the marble table.
Holding it in one clawed fist the Ijiraq says, in a voice that makes Novox think of glaciers and empty forests of the boreal north, "I will speak for myself."
The kerak's disappointment is palpable but he turns to Novox, "Do you agree to the arrangement? Speak carefully, such contracts are quite...binding under the current circumstances."
A cool breeze swept through the Hellknight ruins, punctuating the karek's proposal. And what a proposal it was. As the true gravity of the moonlit summit was revealed, and notably what leading role he was to play in it, all eyes were on the Egorian. How would he respond? What weighty considerations were being measured behind that noble brow? How fared the broad shoulders beneath the responsibility levied him? What conflict could be seen in the steady gaze, so much darker, deeper and unfathomable than the night sky above?
"...No matter, my lords fey," he spoke - calmly, easily - in breaking the deafening silence fallen over the table. "I'll make my own seat."
With a single flap of its black wings, the raven on his shoulders alighted. It did not go far. Feathers sinking into the rapidly expanding hide, what had been a bird plummeted to the ground merely to land as soundlessly as only a cat could: it had transformed into a great panther, midnight-purple and regal. Moving as if in one fluid motion, the beast sauntered its potent bulk to the table just as its master brushed back his cloak and folded at the knees. The silken fur looked fit for a king as Narsus Novox seated himself sideways on his new familiar, now appearing for all the world like some dual lord of the natural and civilized world both.
'Comfortable, Master Novox?' the imp queried through their shared bond, demure and by her tone not the least bothered at the weight resting on her, not in this mighty guise.
'Quite adequate, imp. Quite adequate.'
'My immortal heart leaps to hear you say so, sir. A great honor.'
The wizard forgave the devil her play devotion for now. It had been she who had suggested accommodating him in this manner after the fey's gross negligence as hosts, after all. Besides, this form was not at all unworthy of him, he considered in eyeing the predator below him, sleek and powerful. The guise was certainly a great deal more aesthetically pleasing than her predecessor's chosen aspect, infantile assemblage of everything brutish as it had been. Commanding such a beast lent him a certain carnal grandeur, Novox decided. The royal purple also rather agreed with his fashion.
And to think that the forest dwellers had thought to leave him standing like a common attendant to his betters. The gall. Pleased as he was with subverting and upstaging their insolence, it wasn't a promising start to their negotiations. Oh, but what negotiations. Everpine was at such a political impasse on the civil war that it would hear a royalist agent's take on the matter? This was portentous. On one hand it represented a potential alliance of some merit to the monarchy, not to mention a major feather in his own proverbial cap. The court would recognize the genius of Narsus Novox at such a feat, as the fey obviously had in consulting him. On the other hand this indicated such a divide among the freaks that any aid they might lend the crown would be severely undermined.
Nevertheless, the diabolist's response could only be affirmative. War was too often a zero-sum game; any aid was better than none at all. "Now," he went on, seemingly more concerned with steepling his fine hands on the bone-white table than with a word spoken thus far, "though your disregard for the finer points of negotiation tact is noted, I fear that I am a stickler for etiquette. A mark of the civilized man, I'm afraid. You wish for our two sides to aid one another, master karek? Then the first step for disparate parties to reach an understanding must be to agree to some rules of mutual respect. Even if only superficial."
The tone was dismissive, nonchalant - a tutor lecturing savages. But it brightened somewhat as the man continued. "Be at ease, sage. If my words seem harsh, know that I say them only in the hope for a long and fruitful relationship with your community. It is for that alliance's sake I am saying this. That, and because the adoption of some decorum may prevent bloodshed, given the present company." Novox turned to the curious amalgamation of man, bone and arctic cold sitting before him at this. The smile on his lips, though mild, could be thought of as downright goading under the circumstances. "With all this in mind - good evening, master ijiraq. I've been looking forward to meeting you again." What, exactly, the diplomat had been hoping for in such a reunion with the creature that had so vexed, even blinded him, was left notably unspoken. It wasn't hard to guess at, however, given the vengeful glint in the dark eyes, smile be damned. Knowing her master's thoughts, Beloreth's feline glare was also turned its way, glowering.
"As for the fate of that much coveted stone..." Novox finally broached the topic at hand with all the urgency of a moss-covered sloth. "Well, I can't very well refuse, can I? After all, you say that the alternative is life-and-death combat with our sight stealing friend here, master karek. Can you confirm this, master ijiraq? I'd rather avoid that if possible." The briefest of pauses followed, a clearing of the throat. "I would prefer not having your death on my conscience."
And on that note: 'Imp, what magic are our debating partners here carrying?'
'An early survey in the event they need convincing through force? A wise precaution, Master. Hell would approve.'
'Shut up, imp.'
It was subtle at first. Novox was talking as he entered the small space around the table, his mind focusing on his fey rivals. Even for his amazing intellect, this was a sufficient distraction so he may has missed the first signs. Still, as he bargained with the kerak and ijiraq his senses pricked on it. His mind noted it , even as he issues regal commands to his overly compliant devilish servant. It was only after the wizard was sitting at his ease, nearly astride the great hunting beast that was Belle, did he fully realize it though.
The night had...changed. Different in his sight, somehow. The sky seemed richer, the air sweeter....His first thought was that the ijiraq had lifted his bewildering enchantment, perhaps in a hope to win Novox over. A futile gesture to be sure. Novox was not the type to forgive and forget, after all.
But no, that wasn't it.
It wasn't the world coming into sharper focus, that his senses could detect more around him. It was quite the reverse. A film was not removed but a filter placed over the world.
The sky above was a richer purple then he had ever seen, and dancing stars of bright green hovered on the edge of sight. The stars he knew so well were still there, present as ever but...phased somehow. Closer at hand the dark grass at his feet looked and felt the same, springy under foot. And yet, looking at it he could also see a carpet of pale blue flowers, dancing in breeze he could not feel. Even the pale marble table before him seemed to shift and dance in the light, sometimes appearing to be an old tree stump pitted with age and rot.
'As you have no doubt noticed,' Belle's soft voice said in his head, freighted with delight that he hadn't noticed, 'Stepping across that circle of mushrooms was a threshold.'
Mushrooms? Novox glanced back and saw a small but perfect ring of fungal growths. A fairy circle, a thin space between worlds. Myth and legend spoke of such things, as well as Novox's more academic knowledge. It was an area where the Material Plane was weakest, and the First World, the realm of fey and imagination, could trickle in. Dangerous places.
'You are very bold, master.' Belle mentally intoned, 'To meet them on their home ground.' Under him the panther purred, ever so softly, sending a tickling vibration up his spin.
"I have made this pact with the kerak, human." The ijiraq mutters, words ice-cold. "I am not accountable to you, but your fears are needless. You stand on the edge of your world and in ours of old. We will not lie or cheat you here, although I am sure you will do both to yourself. Now, answer. Will you make this choice?"
The kerak sits, unmoving.
Novox looked into the sky above. He wasn't much of a stargazer, though not for a lack of appreciation for those celestial objects. The grandeur of the cosmic, the quiet reflection below the night dome; these were things an intellect such as his could grasp, if not always enjoy. In fact, the Egorian quite appreciated the twinkling stars in particular. After all, these represented worlds destined to be conquered by himself one glorious day.
This particular night sky, however, rather demanded one's attention. A flowing midnight-purple cloak studded with illimitable sparkling diamonds, this was what was on display tonight. It seemed so grand, so present, one almost thought to reach out to touch it. Familiar as he was with them, Novox found the constellations therein quickly enough, yet even these appeared different, alive even. The Lantern Bearer, glinting in green, undulated, its tail gently flowing back and forth, threatening to coil about the Wagon's wheel. And suddenly he realized. Ah. The First World. Of course.
Even as the imp confirmed his suspicion, the diabolist's false smile, just as a flower might if transferred to that magical realm, grew a bit wider, more genuine. So the fey wished to bring some of their own magic into proceedings? Amusing. Let them try. Ever arrogant, Novox was not intimidated at this thought given what he knew of the First World, namely that it had been the gods' first prototype for what would become the Material Plane. Why should this frighten him? Narsus Novox spat in the gods' faces with his every invocation; no failure of theirs would browbeat him.
If anything, seeing the Rahadoumi's reaction to that reality would be amusing. The disorder and turmoil supposedly ruling it would validate his every aversion to the divine.
"Yes," Novox replied, clearly and coolly. "I agree to your terms."
Do your worst.
Hax looked down at the moonlight grass, peering at the rough ruined stones left from the Hellknight fortress. The atheist's eyes traced the ring of pale mushrooms and he shook his head.
"I will not enter that ring, Novox, and it is foolish of you to do so. But I will wait here, for your return." And he takes a formal stance, hands behind his back, sword sheathed, looking for all the world like a last statue left to honor a fallen warrior.
The kerak seems to smile, feather's rustling, "Your servant is wary and wise. Yet fortune favors the bold, as it is said. I am glad you are not as he is, Narsus Novox."
The ijiraq shifting slightly on their stone chair as Novox agrees, "Good, then let us begin. I grow bored of this posturing."
"Then I will start, although I do not need to say much." The kerak said, feathered hands tapping lightly on the stone table. 'For my offer is already known. If given the holy stone, I can offer Everpine's assistance in the wars of men. The powers and wisdom of the fey are not to be underestimated. We know many secrets and know the ways of the land like no other. It would be a boon to your cause."
His bird-like eyes shifted from Novox to the ijiraq as he added, "And turning your back on such an alliance would be...unwise."
There was a moment of silence as the fey finished speaking, and Novox caught the scent of honey and earthy loam. A smell from the First World or perhaps merely a night breeze from the distant woods beyond the ruins? Whichever it was, it was a soft and gentle smell, alluring....
Then the rough and bitter laugh of the ijiraq broke the spell. It is a bloody, cruel sound that makes Novox think of broken bones in wild places, far from help. "Kerak, you outdo yourself. You have grown canny in dealing with men, but you still do not know them as well as I!" The deaths skull turned to Novox, affixing him with empty sockets.
"They all desire one thing. Power." Again the rag-clad beast rummaging through his tattered clothes. This time he brought a stack of blood-stained parchments, that crackled with age as the fey placed them on the smooth table. "Spells, human, powerful spells. You will not find these in your books of lore. Think of what you could do with this fey-magic, human. What great things you may achieve! What lord needs alliances."
He grunted and went on, "But I also offer you this." And the ijiraq pulled out a small blue mushroom, holding it delicately between jagged claws.
The kerak squawked with annoyance, "You cannot offer that, it is too much!"
The ijiraq chortled evilly, but spoke to Novox not the blustering kerak. "If you eat this thing, it will give you power over the insects of this plane. Maybe that does not sound like much?" The fey lean s forward the icy voice is softened, ever so slightly, "Ah, but you are cunning, I see it behind your eyes. You can see it, plans in your mind. What spies they would make! What secrets they may ferret out? And no land is stranger to them. In iron-bound city, distant desert or even dark cave, you will have a host of servants."
Not a word escaped the Egorian as he listened to his two fellow diplomats promise him power, the world, and a complementary tin of biscuits if he just favored their respective faction. He merely waited - elbows resting on the moonlight table, fingers interwoven in thought, immaculately goateed chin perched on said fingers' bridge - for the fey lords to finish their prepared statements. And once these much vaunted immortals had done so, his immediate reply was not encouraging: Novox sighed. It was only then that the dark eyes, lowered to the marble surface throughout, rose to meet them. What they saw there was disappointment of a level no one should ever have to fear from anyone but a stern father.
"So is that it?"
The words were hard and precise, material where the feys' had evoked sweet honey and arctic winds. "You mean to simply bribe me? You thought it enough to hold your gifts up to me like knickers waving at the end of a whore's finger? Is this what the fate of your home hinges on? Which one of you can draw from the deepest coffer? I should be insulted." The noble mouth curled in distaste. "You must think very little of me indeed to not even attempt to speak to my sense of honor, to sway me with the righteousness of your cause."
The wizard reared in his seat, proud as Asmodeus himself before the fall. "You speak of my desires. I tell you that I desire nothing more than to preserve my nation, whether through military aid or personal power. And in this mission I see beyond the fleeting, as you immortals should. What I had hoped to achieve with this conference is nothing less than a lasting alliance with the fey of Everpine. I don't merely seek to unite the disparate factions of sundered Cheliax. Like a broken urn with its shards resealed with molten steel, I don't want to simply repair the nation, I wish to leave it stronger. A Chelish Everpine, an Everpine well and truly part of the empire, would serve that purpose much better than any momentary aid." He raised a dissuading hand before anyone could object, then looked to the karek. "Do not misunderstand, sage. I know perfectly well that the oak is not grown in a day. I realize that your people might protest at such close relations with devil-blighted humanity. But these fears are rooted in the past, not the present, and certainly not the future. The old reign of Cheliax, the crown you knew, is dead and gone. The self-serving capital sycophant that you think me to be - and do not deny it, or you wouldn't have thought buying me to be possible - is a thing of yesterday. What you are looking at is the next generation, the next inheritors of the nation. You may not trust me, but consider that taking a chance and grabbing a stake in the new world that is coming could be very advantageous indeed."
The First World about them seemed to flash at every word as if resonating with the power the diabolist imbued them with. "A standing partnership with Dekarium. That is all I ask for now. It is already more closely aligned with your culture than mainland Cheliax. Establishing embassies in each others settlements would be an admirable first step in fostering a permanent alliance. Consider what I am offering you, Master Karek. This is not just a guarantee of a place in the new, greater empire that is to come out of this civil war. It is the opportunity to have a hand in shaping that empire. The future is coming. I am asking whether Everpine will be part of it."
Whatever his faults, Narsus Novox was ambitious. Why return to the capital's court with one secured settlement when you could have two? Momentous as what he was suggesting was, he was ready to accept the karek's offer of simple aid should it come to that. Doing so would fulfill the mission he had come here to do, and could very well still lay the groundwork for a properly Chelish Everpine some day. Or the inevitable betrayal and invasion of Everpine some years down the line. That was question for another, very distant day. Whatever the outcome, he could not deny the opportunity to try.
That said, he hadn't forgotten the third party at the table. "As for your offer, Master Ijiraq, I am led to believe that you represent a less influential faction than the good sage. As you have no doubt already gathered, my ambition lies less with myself than it does my country as a whole. So unless you have a standing army hidden within the marrow of some bone of yours, or can tell me why favoring you would serve Cheliax better, I am inclined to reject your tempting bid."
Belle purrs with approval at Novox's strong words and bold stance. The feeling physically passes through him, as if the Earth was trembling with anticipation at the reaction.
It is not long in coming.
"Your haughty words will not aid you, human." The kerak says and all traces of warm honey are gone from his voice. The small bird-man leans forward, feathers flaring and Novox can sense several facades falling away. Gone is the quirky little man of the forest, the whimsical guest at a village Revel. Also vanished is the wise old councilor of Kings, keeper of musty secrets. Replacing it is a being of pride and power, of ancient lineage, used to command and control. Even his accent changes, become stern and clear, and oddly, far more human.
"Curb your tongue. I have witnessed countless deaths of your kind, recorded their last words. How dare you-"
A gravelly snort from the ijiraq cuts him off and the kerak checks himself. The boney being of ice and blood clicks an unseen tongue, a hollow echoing sound. "Ah, humans. You may think yourself unique, Novox of Cheliax, but you are not. The arrogance, the pride...All as I remember it of old."
A dry chuckle, "And like your ancestors, bartering in wares you do not know the value of." At this the kerak gives the skull creature a sharp look, feathers shifting in obvious alarm.
"Have you considered, human, " The ijiraq says blandly, "what that stone does?"
Does? Novox had never really considered that to had done anything. Behind him, he can sense Hax stir and Belle's tail twitches.
"No!" The kerak shouts, this time rising from his chair. Clawed feet dig into the loamy earth below the table. "We agreed-"
A gale of chill wind seems to blow as the ijiraq replies, not even turning to face his fellow fey, "It is the key in a lock, human. With that stone, your erstwhile ally here will be able to open a door to the First World. A fully functioning door, capable of two way travel right into the heart of the fey realm. Destroying that door was one of the reasons your kind took that stone in the first place. If this land's safety is your highest goal, then opening that door would cut against it."
There is a flare of magic from the kerak, a bewildering cascade of bright lights. Before Novox can react, it dashes itself harmlessly against some shield from the ijiraq. The bony creature laughs as the colored rays dissipate and the attack fades into dim sparkles.
"Your own sanctuary protects me, kerak. This place will reject such moves."
The kerak visibly takes a deep breath and there is a long moment of silence. The stars above, at least those in the Material world, wheel through their accustomed orbits. Intricate paths laid out by the gods at the beginning of time, governed by math and logic. Unfaltering, unyielding.
Then the kerak speaks, his voice neither soft nor hard. ”But is that true, human? Does this not merely I offer more? As you guess, those on the other side of the door will favor me and my designs. It only enhances my ability to give you and your throne what it desires. You speak of alliance? I agree to such terms. Embassies or, perhaps as you mean it, even hostages. Very well, let it be the start of a true partnership, such as never existed before in this land.”
Swiftly, very swiftly, the moonlit conference devolved into a mockery of diplomacy. Fey lords forgot their stations in favor of spitting insults at him, putting aside position in favor of pridefully protesting perceived put-downs to their own person. Beaks squawked and wind roared as anger overtook prudence. Secrets were spilled. Violence was even resorted to, flaring sparks of nature's madness whirling before him. Aspex the Even-Tongued would have wept. And throughout this bickering, shouting and fighting Novox remained seated opposite the supposed dignitaries, pleased as punch. Oh, this was going swimmingly.
Immortals. What worthless creatures they were. Static beasts in an ever changing universe, their only mutable aspect being their egos expanding in accordance with the passing centuries. And as with any bubble, introducing the slightest barb caused it to pop. So it was that the Egorian's candor stripped the fey of their conceits, revealing their character and reducing them to something malleable, something he could work with. It was a sadly necessary step of any negotiation, he had found. He liked to think of it as preparing a good tenderloin, trimming away the silverskin and scouring the flesh with salt to get at the meat of the debate - to force his opponents to drop their carefully laid pretenses. 'The most honest man in Dekarium' was how he had described himself just yesterday. It was true, though not in the traditional sense. No, he just had a way of cutting through the lies to make people honest. My, how he loved honesty. In others, that was. Whether extracted through drugs, magic, torture or anger, he so appreciated sincerity. Now he'd made honest men out of the fey. Now the talks could begin.
And yet what had been revealed was disconcerting. "This begs a question, ijiraq," he said in measured tones after having allowed his dance partners to twirl themselves ragged. "If what you are saying is true, why would you not wish for such a gateway yourself?"
The revelation of the true nature of the stone was a boon, albeit a troubling one. A alliance with Everpine was desirable, to be sure. But allowing the fey to grow to such power that they might very well become a faction unto themselves could be catastrophic, especially whilst the civil war still raged.
The ijiraq shifts as if to speak, but now it is the kerak turns to interrupt.
"A fair question." the fey says, voice acidic, clearly aimed at the bony creature of ice."Will you tell him, master ijiraq? Why does a portal to our old home trouble you?"
A long pause only broken by a dry rasping breath from the ijiraq, that reminds Novox of the death rattle of some ancient beast.
"Fish." The kerak says promptly, which Novox has to admit tells him little. His face must have given it away for the feathered fey goes on, "That is the saying, is it not? A big fish in a small pond."
He turns his beady eyes on his rival and goes on, voice soft, "Bu there are other reasons, are there not?"
Then without warning the kerak's voice changes to a high and rollicking voice more suited to a tavern then a cold table of marble under a shifting moon.
"Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-Wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father's throat.
The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--Loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce."
The Ijiraq openly snarls at this, and Novox can see the stumps of worn and yellow teeth win the caribou skull. "I fear no one, fey, man or god. " The Ijiraq says a bit too quickly, "But I do not deny I have foes beyond the portal."
Turning back to Novox, "The First World is full of many powers, human, none of which you would be wise to treat with. For they are strange and uncanny, and your diplomacy would be of little interest to them. Would you trust them? Are you so wise as to see all ends?"
Then he took begins to chant, as if in song although his voice remains cold and unlovely.
Who can deliver us from her claws,
That enchants from afar?
Who can liberate us from her spell?
Though we wallow daily ensnared in her web,
Helplessly bewitched by her magnificent.
Yet our desires, lust, and affection on her tent we cast.
Then silence, both fey turning to Novox' reaction.
Peering over the bridge of his interlaced fingers, the Egorian's eyes had grown darkly dull in discontent. That carefully cultivated air of everything cool and collected had evaporated; it would not aid him at the impasse he stood before now. Now a different figure sat bent over the moonlight table, frustrated as a lover scorned, weary as a finch in a cage. Only now did the choice the fey lords presented him with reveal itself for the dilemma it was, and Novox was very peeved at its implications indeed.
A sigh that could have ended worlds escaped the furrowed mouth before he answered the ambassadors' verse in kind, listlessly reciting:
"And each, though enemies to either’s reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee."
Ever a cultured man, the wizard had more than a few snippets of Cheliax's greatest prose & poetry locked away and memorized inside his magnificent mind-palace. This particular stanza had come to him almost unbidden in his vexation, as if to comfort him that others before him had suffered predicaments as he did now, that he was now brother in spirit to the nation's wordsmithing laureates. Now if only that consolation wasn't so much empty blather before the problem facing him now. Think, man, think! Was he not Narsus Novox, the greatest genius Golarion had seen since Aroden walked its bountiful earth? Surely he could puzzle out this conundrum to work in his favor. But however the illimitable intellect grappled with it, this puzzle box could not be forced into any configuration to his liking.
The ijiraq's offer of personal power was appreciated, certainly, but it simply wasn't what the diabolist had trekked here for. It wasn't his victory condition in this little scenario. No, that apparently rested wholly with the kerak: securing Everpine's aid in the civil war was not just Novox's official mission entrusted him from on high, it also fulfilled his more personal ambition of building a stronger, better Cheliax. Fey servitors, if properly managed, could be a great asset to the empire. The problem lay in the sage's price. A permanent portal between worlds, in essence turning Everpine from fey settlement to First World colony? A foreign colony in the heartland of Cheliax? A colony of planar outsiders? In his Cheliax? Unacceptable. The very idea set his patriotic blood to boiling. He had made it his destiny to battle, slay and enslave those officious outsiders who thought to subvert's the rightful rule of humanity, not engender the propagation of more of them! Everpine represented a boon to the crown only as a subservient lesser. As a powerful faction in their own right, they would always be a potential threat, especially given the current fractured state of the nation.
Novox ran a forlorn hand down his impeccably trimmed beard. This wasn't viable. By the parameters given, victory was not an option in this struggle. Neither was failure - never - an option. He stood deadlocked. This, the adroit mind knew, left him with only one choice: shatter the parameters forced onto him. Turning from vexation to new purpose, the gaze that suddenly fell on the fey was near palpable in its weight. Yes, he had decided. The only solution to the impossible choice thrown in his lap like a wet dog was to give them a worse still. It was time to see just how 'binding' this contract the kerak had spoken of was.
Reaching into the satchel at his side, Novox slowly and leisurely extracted an item from it. The deep yellow of the jagged piece of amber appeared more vivid, more intense somehow resting on his palm as he brought it into view, no doubt reacting to the power of the First World. The diabolist said nothing, however, content to merely look into its luminous core. And then beyond it, his eyes opening to the arcane. It was no longer a mere stone he held before him; no, this was a living, beating heart, its lifeblood pure magical power pumping and pulsing throughout. Was it all true? Was everything the fey had told him really so? Were the parameters to the game they played inviolable? Or was there still some way for him to emerge triumphant?
Both fey seem surprised when Novox returns verse in kind, clearly haven't not expected a man to engage in such banter. The ijiraq recovers first, grumbling dismissively.
"Humans do not understand rhyme or reason. Their poems lack form or power, and they wander endlessly from theme to theme. "
The kerak however calms, reclaims his seat and looks thoughtful, clearly pondering the words. "This one...I know. The Bard. He was a mighty singer, his words are in many of my memories." He trails off, bird-like eyes lost in thought.
Which leaves Novox time to contemplate his choice. The wizard took out the yellow stone, of which so much import seemed to have been placed. Not only did these fey fight over it like dogs, but the Hellknights can kept it, despite their obvious desire to destroy such things. What had held them back? Did it require more study? Was it perhaps too dangerous? Or, unlikely as it seemed, beyond their power? Novox gazed into the stone, searching it for the arcane lings of magic. His eyes pentrated the yellow sheen and were drawn deeper....
There was much to see.
The item pulsed with magic, nearly writhed with it. A few things became very apparent. For one things, it was very much linked tot he First World, that was obvious. Tiny, barely detectable tendrils of magic faded onto into the space between spaces, links over the planes. And judging by how they sparkled in this thin space, it was clear what plane it was aligned to.
Secondly, this items was part of a set of three. He could clearly trace two others implied in the magical aura that surrounded it.
Thirdly, and most importantly this thing was very potent. It was filled with raw magic like a over-full wineskin. Breaking this thing, and Novox doubted he could, would probably let loose a torrent of primal arcana the likes of which he had never read. Such eruptions were not unheard of, but First World magic was known to be even more unpredictable....The Hells with this being a key, it was more like a bomb!
And then Novox can feel something from the stone, an emanation. It is not his sense, for his eyes and ears detect nothing, but instead his mind gets a...sense. A sensation of great time, of slow growth of patient waiting. Novox can feel ages past, trapped in the bole of a great tree, dark and quiet. The slow accumulation of amber sap over countless ages. Of being being watched and tended, carefully grown.
Then a brutal harvest, being ripped free of a timeless womb. Of being filled with wild, living magic beyond the ken of mortal men.
Novox realizes this thing had been grown, not made. It had been carefully tended like a garden, not forged in some smithy.
Curious.
But, more relevant, the fey seemed to be telling the truth. This stone was powerful and linked to the First World.
Long pale fingers thrummed along the amber. And with every tap the artifact sent arcane reverberations through the digits in response, an almost painful quiver of sheer otherworldly power. His hands were aching. But Novox paid them no heed. He was thinking. This, as most everyone who had ever crossed the man knew, was cause for concern. Lives were altered and mountains uprooted when Narsus Novox laid a plan. Or so they did when he was pleased with his latest stratagem, as he was wont to, greatest intellect alive that he was. Heavens knew what to expect now, for the silent gaze staring into the moonlight table carried all the furious portent of a roiling thundercloud. Whatever his plans, Novox himself wasn't best pleased with them. Gods help us all.
The fingers stopped. And with them the darkly heavy look slowly raised from the table to land on the kerak. The quiet had long since transformed from an absence to the deafening. Yes, he knew what he had to do. He just wasn't happy about it. He held up the much vaunted stone in one hand.
"I'm handing this over to the ijiraq and you're going to aid the crown in return."
Had they heard him right? Clear, crisp and precise as the Egorian's speech was, there could be no doubt, really. The request - nay, command - was just so nonsensical, not to mention baseless, as to warrant questioning. And questioning was most certainly what the feathered sage would have launched into if the human hadn't rudely interrupted him again. "Three," he said, letting the syllable hang in the night air before continuing. "This stone is but one of a set of three. And given what you have told me of it, I assume that these disparate pieces can only fulfill their intended function when brought together. Furthermore, the fact that you are so very eager to acquire it can only mean that you already have the other two. Am I wrong?"
The briefest of pauses followed, a token concession from the generous wizard in which the fey lords could confirm his suspicion, whether in word or sullen silence. "I thought so. So here is how this little assembly of ours will conclude: the stone goes to the good ijiraq who then may sprint off to his miserable snowy pasture with it in tow." Here he already had to fend off the kerak's protests, which he did and sharply so. "But only with the solemn and binding vow that he may not destroy it! He is to safeguard and shelter it. He is to become the keeper of the key to your First World."
'Keeper of the key'? Slowly the image Novox was gradually painting came into focus, the implications of his stipulations becoming clear. And neither fey was happy with them. Nor was he for that matter in going on grimly. "Do you see? You may have your gateway, kerak. And you may control who does and does not enter this realm, ijiraq. Because you are both going to promise the other regular conferences in which you will discuss the use of the portal. You will both hold one part of the power needed to open it. You will both have ultimate vetoing power over the other. And only those fey you can both agree on may pass through. Are you following? You will be bridge builder and border watchman respectively. This is the way it has to be. Because none of us are getting what we want, unless we all get some of what we want."
An alliance between these two hated enemies. A planar gateway only accessible if they both agreed who passed through it. The kerak with access to those higher powers that dwelt within that reality. The ijiraq's position in the material plane secured against those same powers. It was as narrow a compromise as could be devised, and, naturally enough, not well received among the fey lords. Why should they, proud immortals, accept this verdict? Why should they dance to this human's tune? Why indeed?
"If you refuse," the stern diabolist went on, anticipating and addressing exactly these indignant queries, "then I bid you adieu and turn this artifact to my own purposes. Perhaps I will destroy it. I can see applications for the sheer devastation such a massive outpouring of pure arcane power would beget. We are at war, after all. Or if not that, mayhap I will approach one of you in private, see if we can reach a more advantageous agreement without a third party. I would prefer we reach an accord here and now, however. And so would you."
The dark warning was clear. And still the fey hesitated, this being such a sharp departure from what either had anticipated and been ready to accept. Which was when the marble table shook beneath the Egorian's fist, slamming into it and then rising from his bestial throne, his every noble feature harsh as the caribou spirit's arctic winds.
"Immortals? Fey lords? No, you are CHILDREN. Like children at play, you hoard your toys. Like children, you want everything and for the other children to have nothing. Well, that's not happening. Because mortal that I am, I am the only adult sitting at this table. Entitled and proud as millennia has made you, I am the only one who knows compromise. So here is what happens now: you either compromise and get something out of this meeting, or you get nothing. Then you may prance back to your filthy burrows and brag to your friends about how you got one up over the other. It's either that or you go back and cry like the infants you are about how you got nothing. Because you are children. Because the mean old human wasn't fair. Grow up! Fairness is the philosophical equivalent of your fairy tales. This is not your perfect land of make believe. This is not the First World. This is the world of mortals. This is my world. This is where we make compromises. You want me to make a decision on this? Here it is: you either get something or nothing at all. What's it going to be?"
There is a long moment of silence. So long in fact, Novox momentarily worries some strange property of the fairy ring has been activated. Had his words tripped some fey counter-attack? Was time itself being summoned was a weapon against him?
Then the silence and stillness is shattered by a very mundane event. Both the kerak and ijiraq start yelling at each other. Curiously, they seem quite content to lean into the wizard's taunts and act very much like children with raised voices, pointed fingers and even stamped feet. These were his negotiating partners? These were the immortal guardians of the forest and a gate between worlds? The legendary subtle and dangerous fey?
Not every outsider has own sense of style. Belle remarks mentally.
Then the ijiraq goes silent, eyes focusing on Novox. "Very well then, human. You have made your choice, with the usual bombastic self-assuredness so common to your kind. You say it is this deal or nothing? " The fey places two clawed hands on the stone table, bones clattering on the hard surface. Whorls of hoarfrost spring to life, tracing in intricate mandalas.
"Then nothing!" The creature turns to the kerak, "He has made no choice, so our pact has failed. I will seek other means to prevent that which I fear. We will meet again, and words will not defend you." A crack of blue light and the bony, bloody creature vanishes.
The kerak sighs heavily and sinks back into his chair, glassy eyes fixed on Novox. He steeples feathered fingers before saying in his warm voice, "You are too clever by half human. By seeking a whole loaf, now you will have less then half. By making no choice you let our mutual foe slip out of the bonds I set on him. The ijiraq will seek to undermine my faction in Everpine, and perhaps even prevent the portal from opening. At the very least, his determined resistance will prevent us from aiding you as much."
He extends a hand, "Give me the stone and you will have your alliance, even if it is not what it could have been."
So very mortal in their fears. So very immortal in their desires. The worst of both worlds. Watching his supposed peers from beneath a bridge of tightly knit brows, Narsus Novox was thoroughly tired of eternals. The stamping of feet. Wanton magic seeping through their pores. Screaming in each others' faces. Gods, but they were revolting. Savages. To have lived so long and learned nothing, that was their failing. As the scrimshaw-clad ice creature bent down to threaten him, trailing all the fury of the arctic winds in its wake, the only thing that impressed the wizard was the foolishness on display. A being of sheer frost and ever-lasting tundra though it might be, it still couldn't match his gaze in sheer coldness.
And then it was gone, leaving himself and the kerak at the moonlight table. The chiding soliloquy that followed from the latter saw no interruption from its recipient.
"Give me the stone and you will have your alliance, even if it is not what it could have been."
What this patter elicited, however, was nothing so desirable. Novox looked at the fey. To say that incredulity and disgust marked his every noble feature, heightened by that stately contrast, would be an overstatement, for such a strong expression would have required passion, genuine interest. No, the diabolist's grimace was one such more so reserved for a failing politician caught burping at a social function: merely mild distaste tinged by wonder at said official's continued position. 'You're still talking?' it seemed to say.
"Oh shush, you ridiculous creature."
This dismissive rebuff delivered, Novox arose from his feline throne, packed his artifact, and turned from the sham that was this negotiation table without another word. Ludicrous. What ridiculous, preposterous, ludicrous creatures. Hand over the key to the nation, his country, his Cheliax because the fey threw a hissy fit over him not handing over said key? They really hadn't heard a word he'd said, had they? Pearls before swine, truly. He had offered them respect, he had offered them compromise, he had offered them reflection, he had offered them part of the greatest empire this world had ever seen and they had screeched, wailed and gone into a tantrum like the children he had admonished them as. Because they couldn't have it all. And worst of all, they were so blind as to project their own failings onto him. 'No choice'? Poppycock. He had decided to do his mission, calling and duty. He had robbed the fey of their means to colonize and invade the nation. He had protected the realm. In lieu of his proposed compromise, this was not just acceptable, it was right.
Besides, he would find a use for the keystone. Was he not Narsus Novox?
'Is this alright, Master?' the dulcet tones of the great cat sauntering behind him sounded. 'The ijiraq - the one who stole your sight - turned its back on you. Will it not be a threat?'
'Perfectly fine. This isn't the first time I've seen its back.'
'Ooh. Very nice, sir.'