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Hammer 13th, 1377 (continued)

The tormentor

We had heard that the portal we sought was deep below Castle Teraknian. We found the stairs that we had taken so long ago with Lavinia, when we had escorted her to her family’s vault, only to find it already ransacked by Vanthus. As we began our descent, we could see that a dull red glow radiated from far below. It illuminated everything around us in an abyssal light.

The way down took much longer than we remembered. Sparkillo speculated that it might be due to the distortion of the Abyss. We passed two landings that led into sections of the complex that housed the vaults of noble families. While some among us, especially Lagaan, might have liked to plunder them, we had more important things in mind. Everything around us reeked of the abyssal taint, and even the doors themselves seemed to be made of damned souls.

After passing through a magical electrified portcullis thanks to Sparkillo’s magic, we finally reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged into a large cave. We saw the portal we sought at the back of the cave, but it seemed to be turned off. Of more immediate interest was the enormous snake-fiend who stood in the center of the room: a dreaded Marilith demon. Her ophidian body was probably about thirty feet long; six muscular arms sprouted from the sides of her muscular, yellow-skinned humanoid torso. Her ugly face was a picture of evil. It seemed that we had interrupted her during a torture session, and she was not pleased about it. Indeed, all around the room were kept unfortunate citizens of Sasserine, all of them horribly maimed and impaled on metal spikes. Each of them wore a necklace of barbed wire around the neck. Their faces were twisted in silent grimaces of anguish and pain. Among them, we recognized a few people we knew such as Zasker Grankus, the master of the arena and Tormagald Gred, a high-ranking priest of Helm from the Cudgel District. One of the prisoners did not look human at all, and was rather a sort of angelic creature.

But the most pitiful of the prisoners was a man hanging upside-down in the center of the room: he had been the current focus of the Marilith’s unwanted attention. He was so bloody that it seemed as though he had been flayed alive. Although we couldn’t identify him from such a distance, we could see that he was a strongly built human… and I had a horrible premonition about his identity.

“More toys to put in my cages!” said the Marilith in an unexpectedly male baritone voice upon seeing us.

“”You will die, demon!!” replied Raguhl defiantly.

Of course, a battle swiftly followed. Sparkillo identified the Marilith as Lillianth, a general in Demogorgon’s armies. She was a dreadful foe indeed. She summoned a Blade Barrier to try to separate half of us from the fight, but Sparkillo and I were able to dodge it and be on the same side as the warriors. Raguhl’s ivory warrior was caught in the furious swirling storm of swords, but it survived its attacks and immediately began regenerating the damage as it advanced to help its master against the demon. This thing is a most useful construct indeed.

Raguhl and Ulfgar rushed the Marilith while Lagaan shot arrows at it. Lillianth was not only almost impossible to hit, but also very resistant to most weapon damage. Sparkillo used his magic to bolster our warriors. I tried to dispel some magic on the demon, but with no effect. Raguhl received the brunt of the Marilith’s countless weapon attacks, and he was severely wounded many times. Thankfully, he had activated his magical crown that absorbed some of the damage. I frantically prayed for his healing, and barely kept him alive.

Sparkillo suddenly cried out in pain: he had been attacked by surprise by none other than Lord Dracktus. The bastard had likely been shadowing us, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. However, he failed to cause our wizard any serious harm, and Sparkillo retaliated immediately with a Feeblemind spell that reduced the shady nobleman to a gibbering simpleton.

Then, Lagaan attacked the Marilith from behind with his holy cold iron rapier held high. He deeply pierced the demon, whose attention was still focused on Raguhl. Before she-he-it could slay the lizardman, the Marilith was slain by Lagaan’s deadly strikes! Once again, the cunning little man showed that brute force is not always the best strategy, and without him, we might not have vanquished this terrible enemy.

After the battle, I hurried to the center of the room, my gaze drawn by the flayed man there. As I approached, I felt my heart constrict in horror, for things were as I feared: this poor man was Norrix, the paladin I had met a year ago. He was trying to cry out in pain, but no sound emerged from his mouth. Sparkillo indicated that this was likely due to the magical barbed wire necklace that had been placed on him. After ensuring that it wouldn’t cause him too much harm, I removed the necklace, and now we heard his howls. I summoned my most powerful energies to heal his tragically tortured body… and felt no answer from my goddess!

She was blocking me… refusing to grant me the power to heal Norrix… a paladin.

THE B@@&&!!!!

I closed my eyes and fought back the urge to scream blasphemies that would surely cost me dearly… When I opened them again, I had regained my calm, and took out a wand of healing from my belt. Using many charges from this simple device, I was able to heal the most important wounds from Norrix’s body. Raguhl also helped me to clean him by washing him with his decanter of endless water. Norrix’s eyes remained closed… he had lost consciousness despite my healing.

Raguhl and I then proceeded to free and heal the remaining prisoners while the others examined the portal and the possessions of our enemies. The prisoners told us their stories, but we learned nothing new of any real importance. The most interesting captive, other than Norrix, was surely Abalarian, who was in fact a trumpet archon whose trumpet, meaning part of its soul, had been destroyed. This frightened creature was still badly scarred from the many years of captivity from the Marilith. Its diaphanous wings were tattered and broken, even after I was done healing it. It was but a shadow of its former self, unable to use its magical powers yet; unable to even return to heaven. I comforted it, smiling inwardly at its pain. I saw in this wretched outsider the chance to sow the seed of corruption… and perhaps turn it into a servant of Umberlee. Such a being could prove very useful to my fickle mistress.

By then, Sparkillo and I had used most of our magic, and we were both very tired. We did not feel up to the challenge of facing Vanthus without resting first. Sparkillo was so drained that he couldn’t even summon a magical mansion. We did not dare leave the prisoners here, nor could we risk traveling all the way back to the Lotus Dragon hideout. Instead, Sparkillo summoned two shelters with Rope Trick spells, and we spent the night in those cramped, uncomfortable and shapeless inter-dimensional spaces like we used to back in the day, before he had become powerful enough to create shelters that were more comfortable. Since there were so many of us, we had to use two different “holes”. My companions and I took refuge in one, along with the archon, Norrix and the now near-brainless Lord Dracktus (who had been disarmed and tied up). The rest of the ex-prisoners were in the other hole, and those among them who could fight were given some of the Marilith’s weapons.

After assigning some people to stand watch, the rest of us went to sleep. I snuggled against the still-unconscious and scarred body of Norrix. I could do nothing more for him at the moment, and my very soul ached in empathy for the pain that he had suffered through the Marilith’s torture. I had given him what help I could for now, even though my own goddess had tried to stop me. Now, I could only hope that time would mend the rest of his body and soul. I gently kissed his cheek when no-one was looking, and I fell asleep holding his hand in mine…

The violet ray

I was back in the council chamber of Castle Teraknian. Around me were the remains of a brutal battle: some of the benches and tables were broken in pieces and blood covered sections of the floor. I saw the mangled corpse of the Babau demon in one corner, and the broken fragments of the Shield Guardian in another. Sparkillo and Lagaan were searching a heap of dusty robes that I realized had recently belonged to the lich Lux Seoni. They had suffered only minor wounds from the battle; Ulfgar was covered in burns, but his life did not seem in danger. Some distance away, I saw a large armored warrior made entirely of ivory and I recognized the magical statue that Raguhl had recently bought from the Mercanes in the Abyss. The lizardman himself was nowhere to be seen, though.

The ivory construct was babbling some incoherent gibberish over and over…

“1377-01-13 11:04:21,710 [warning] Listener process: command input module not found.
1377-01-13 11:04:21,711 Timeout while trying to connect to master Raguhl. Please verify the master link configuration file. Trying again in 3000 millirounds.
1377-01-13 11:04:21,714 com.golem.impl.network.masterConnectionException: Raguhl: master not reachable.
1377-01-13 11:04:21,718 current_number_hostile_opponents_detected = 0
1377-01-13 11:04:21,722 Reverting to default behavior algorithm.”

“Where’s Raguhl?” I asked.

“That lich hit us with a weird cone of colors,” said Ulfgar, “it drove me nuts for a little while, but Sparkie cured me. It made Raguhl disappear, though.”

“Ah, Belessa, how delightful to see you!” said Sparkillo. “I trust your fight against Edvanda went well?”

“Yes, quite,” I said with a smug smile.

“Good for you,” said Lagaan. “Dracktus got away like a sissy…”

“As the dwarf got away too, in gas form. He was a vampire,” said Ulfgar.

“As Ulfgar was saying before,” added Sparkillo, “my former headmistress, Lux Seoni, who was turned into a lich-like undead abomination, may her soul rest in peace, used a mighty Prismatic Spray against us, which barely harmed Lagaan and me, but alas, which hit Raguhl with a dreaded violet ray.”

I waited for a moment for the wizard to elaborate, but he did not. Clearly, he wanted me to ask. “… and what does the violet ray do?” I said, humoring him.

“Ah, it is a well-known fact that the violet ray is one of the most dangerous. I fear our scaly friend has been forced into one of the outer planes against his will; but to which one specifically, I cannot yet say. Perhaps you could contact him via divine magic?”

I used two Sending spells to get some information about Raguhl’s location. He was alive, which was a good thing, I guess, but his first set of instructions was maddeningly vague: he was in a dark cave. Great, that really narrowed it down since we were trying to locate him in the multiverse.

He then gave a more specific description of the stone walls around him, and Sparkillo recognized them as a specific region within the elemental plane of earth. Still, it could take us weeks, months, or years to find the lizardman.

But just as we were starting to wonder if we should just abandon him there, the massive barbarian suddenly materialized in the council room. Much to our surprise, we noticed that a beautiful golden-haired angel-like creature was with him. We learned that her name was Celeste and that she worked for Raguhl’s holy patron, Gwynharwyf the Whirling Fury, one of the Lords of Arborea. Apparently, this major power of the higher planes had been following the deeds of Trouble for some time, just like Umberlee, and she too was trying to help us as we fought the agents of the foul Demogorgon. Unfortunately, for reasons having to do with the politics of the outer planes, she could not help us directly in battle, but as soon as she had noticed that her champion Raguhl was stranded in neutral territory, she had been able to intervene by bringing him back on the right path.

Well, that was very nice of her and it saved us a lot of wasted time. The angelic Celeste kissed Raguhl on the cheek, and then she disappeared in a puff of sweet-smelling smoke.

The price of crossing me

To say that the fight was messy would be an extreme euphemism. The first attack that the monster did was a deluge of excrement over the entire group. I do not wish to delve deeper into the specifics of this battle; I have already written too much about it. Suffice it to say that we defeated this opponent and moved on with the rest of our adventure after Sparkillo cleaned us up with his magic.

The next room was the council chamber where we met several of our main enemies. My eyes immediately locked on my nemesis, Edvanda Balak, but others also stood in the room, plotting together. One of them was a gray-robed dwarf with bloody fists. Another was a female Babau demon who wielded a halberd. Yet another was a skeletal creature in mage’s robes: Lux Seoni, the mistress of the Witchwardens, along with a construct known as a Shield Guardian. Standing before them, on the central platform of the room, was Lord Emil Dracktus. His appearance was somewhat changed from the last time we’d seen him: he now looked like some sort of half-demon.

Just as the battle started, Edvanda and I were surrounded by a chaotic swirl of colors and were teleported into a very different place by the will of Umberlee herself. We found ourselves in a bubble deep down in the watery depths of Fury’s Heart, in the very court of Umberlee. Edvanda and I watched each other in a silence that was heavy with the weight of our hate for one another. Her dark eyes glittered evilly as she prepared her spiked chain for battle. She was dressed in a dark full plate armor and her skin was also of a dark color not unlike those of the Olman people.

We knew that our omnipotent mistress was watching, eager to see two of her mightiest priestesses locked in mortal combat.

Unfortunately for her, the fight was risibly short.

Edvanda lunged toward me with a battle-cry, but I was faster than her, thanks to my new magical gloves, and as she approached, I unleashed the might of a Slay Living spell on her thick body. She immediately stiffened and her eyes went wide in shock and pain. She gave a hoarse cry of agony and toppled over.

She was dead…

My laughter echoed all around the water bubble as I stood triumphant over the body of my slain foe.

But Umberlee was not pleased: I had finished the fight too quickly. She reached her dark fingers around Edvanda’s soul and wrenched it back into her body, reanimating the withered husk into a foul undead monstrosity that lurched to life toward me.

I turned an amused smile toward the dark presence I knew was lurking at the edge of our watery arena.

“Oh, mistress,” I said merrily, “I’ve always told you that Edvanda was unworthy of your attention.”

I lifted the unholy symbol of Umberlee’s twin waves high, and the Edvanda-zombie craned her neck and gazed at it in adoration, unable to attack me.

“See how easily she breaks when presented with your symbol! Surely you could not be satisfied with such a meek sheep as one of your high priestesses!”

With a teasing laugh, I moved around the bubble, directing Edvanda’s movements as if she were my puppet. I made her dance for our mistress.

How long that dance lasted, I cannot tell for sure, but when I finally opened my eyes again, I felt a profound sense of satisfaction at knowing I had defeated my hated enemy; but even more, I felt Umberlee’s blessing on me more strongly than ever. I knew I had passed yet another milestone in her eyes by slaying Edvanda.

Revenge of the nymph

After I healed the wounds we had taken during the battle, and once we had taken our usual magical breakfast, Lagaan summoned Zarvynia again and handed Zebula to her. We saw a dark side of the fey this time, and we got the satisfaction that, as her former captor and tormentor, Zebula would meet a very gruesome death at her hands. She used her magic to take the nobleman back to wherever she had come from.

We then made our way, once again in cloud form, toward Castle Teraknian. We noticed that Sasserine looked less chaotic than the previous day, perhaps due to the disappearance of Hookface. We also saw that a horde of skeletons and zombies were trying to get inside the black sphere covering the Vanderboren estate. We took it as a sign that Vanthus was within. In the distance, we saw that the high tower of Helm’s temple in the Cudgel district had been partly demolished, and that a group of Vrocks now nested there. They would have to wait, though: we wanted to strike at Castle Teraknian first to gain entrance to Vanthus’s abode.

The castle’s main entrance was guarded by two huge Lemorian Golems. We approached the side entrance, the one that I had used most of the time back when I worked for the Dawn Council. The golems approached us as we materialized back into our solid forms, but once they detected Zebula’s magical key, they returned to their posts without attacking us.

The formerly splendid castle was in a sorry state and strongly influenced by the Abyss. The side door now had the appearance of a huge demon’s mouth, and inside, the passageways were dark. The walls oozed dark blood. The room where scribes had once worked was now teeming with restless spirits, condemned to write about death and suffering for eternity. We made our way toward the stairs that led down to the vaults of the castle, which we had visited so long ago with Lavinia, back when we had tried to reclaim her parents’ fortune. We hoped to find a portal there that would take us inside the black sphere.

However, the way was barred by an enormous filth demon that wallowed in a pool of stinking sludge. The creature lurched grotesquely in our direction, and we knew that we had an unpleasant fight ahead of us…

Punctuality or death

Shortly after we all woke up, but before I had the time to summon our daily sustenance of Heroes’ Feast, we were suddenly brought back within the Meravanchi mansion when someone dispelled Sparkillo’s magical abode in a most impolite way. We turned furious glares toward the culprit, who was an attractive red-skinned female demon clad in a tight leather outfit. She wielded a scimitar and a sickle and her hair was arranged in two dark pigtails that looked strangely out of place on such an obviously sadistic fiend.

“Which one of you is Meravanchi?” she asked in a nonchalant tone.

We all nodded toward the battered, bound and gagged nobleman.

“Very well, I have been sent to kill him for missing yesterday’s meeting at Castle Teraknian,” said the woman.

“Kill him?” exclaimed Sparkillo, clearly taken aback. “What kind of organization punishes tardiness with such draconian measures?”

“I’ve got my orders,” replied the red-skinned assassin.

“Don’t worry,” said Lagaan, “we were planning on getting rid of him anyway… We’re going to give him to someone who used to be his prisoner. I’m sure she’s got a pretty nasty fate in store for him.”

“So he will die?” asked the assassin.

“Yes,” replied Lagaan.

“Slowly, I hope?” asked Ulfgar with a raised eyebrow.

“Of course,” assured Lagaan with a grin.

We learned that this woman was called S’Shara and had been sent by Vanthus to kill Zebula. Since we were worried that she would leave and report our presence to her master, Sparkillo tried to sneakily cast a Dimensional Anchor on her. Unfortunately, it failed pathetically to bypass her spell resistance.

The fiend’s face was twisted by a grim smile.

“You see,” she said,” I am a reasonable demoness. Most of the time, I don’t let negative emotions get in the way of business.” She drew her two weapons. “Unfortunately for you, this is not one of those times!”

A difficult battle followed against this powerful foe. She was extremely agile, and therefore hard to hit. She also possessed a plethora of demonic offensive and defensive capabilities that made her very difficult to kill. She was able to dispel magic at will, to fly, to turn invisible, her blades were poisoned and she was surrounded by an aura of despair. However, with a little perseverance, and the help of Invisibility Purge and Silence spells, we were able to fight her in close combat, and our warriors finally overcame her. When Ulfgar struck the killing blow, she melted into a puddle of sickening black goo.

Thankfully, her precious magical items had survived the transformation. After cleaning them by magic, Sparkillo identified them and we distributed some of them amongst ourselves. I inherited her lovely black leather gloves, which will increase my agility – a welcome improvement!

Hammer 13th, 1377

Zebula speaks

We ended up spending the night in a Sparkillo’s Magnificent Mansion that was summoned inside the Meravanchi manor. We took the time to rest, but maintained a guard at all times, among other things to keep an eye on our prisoner, Zebula Meravanchi.

The previous evening, Sparkillo had charmed him by magic, and had learned a little bit of moderately useful information from him. Zebula hated us all because Lagaan had stolen his nymph sex-toy. He was apparently not the one who had placed a bounty on our heads. I guessed we had Edvanda to blame for that.

Zebula had been pulling strings in Sasserine for a while now, using to his own advantage the problems caused by Oblivion’s Embrace last year, and Vanthus’s arrival more recently. However, he had recently decided that Sasserine’s translocation into the Abyss might in fact present a small obstacle to his ambitious politican schemes: indeed, even if he became one of the main rulers of the city, there would soon not be much of a city to run. Of course, it had taken the idiot quite a long time to come to that obvious conclusion. Edvanda was also not pleased that Vanthus was bringing the city to Gaping Maw; instead, she was trying to convince him to bring it to Fury’s Heart, where Umberlee dwells. I was certain that Vanthus would never agree to such a thing. But then, Edvanda has always been a delusional fool.

The chaos cultists who had spread the Oblivion’s Embrace drug throughout the city, madmen like Father Thergar who worshipped the Queen of Chaos, had for some reason helped Sasserine’s defenders against Vanthus and his demons and undead. However, they had been unable to stop him from gaining control of the city.

Edvanda and Zebula were some of the citizens who had allied with Vanthus. Another one was Emil Dracktus, that murderous scumbag who called himself a nobleman. Lagaan had every intention of killing him and taking his place once all of this was over.

Zebula had been in the process of leaving Sasserine altogether when we had attacked the mansion. His little derro magician had devised a way to teleport the entire manor to Calimshan with a ritual. Sparkillo was quite disappointed to learn that the derro had left no grimoire behind.

“Sorcerers!” he said with a snort. “Such amateurs, they never properly document their findings! And all the while, the academic burden of furthering the cause of the arcane arts rests solely on the shoulders of poor wizards like me and the Witchwardens.”

“The Witchwardens are no more,” said Zebula grimly. “The head of the order was turned into an undead by Edvanda.”

“Lux Seoni?!?” exclaimed Sparkillo, “I am aghast!”

“Well, so is he now, I guess,” replied Zebula.

“She,” corrected Sparkie. “That is truly a shame. She was a brilliant theoretical magician. Not to mention her sublime physical beauty as well. I will never forget that magnificent tattooed body…”

“Well, he serves Vanthus now.”

“She.”

“Yeah, she serves Vanthus.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of undead she is now?”

“I don’t know much about those things. I think he’s a unique type of undead.”

“She.”

“Yeah, she. Listen, are you going to untie me, friend Sparkillo?”

“Later, my friend. Patience…”

Zebula grimaced. “How the hell did we become friends in the first place, anyway?”

“We’re both noblemen… In these dangerous times, we all have to stick together, don’t we?”

“But your family was weak.”

“They were not!!” replied the elf, clearly outraged.

“Yeah, they were. If you knew anything about politics in Sasserine, you’d know that.”

“I do know a lot about politics. I read all the books about it!”

“Bah, you don’t know anything. You’re powerful, but the rest of your family was weak. That’s why they were crushed. But say, didn’t you have an undead in your estate before that happened?”

“Yes, a fine fellow: a talking skeleton. He’s the first nice undead we met, actually. Nice undead are so rare, you know? I’m going to turn into one, one day, when it’s my time to leave this life. Have you heard about non-evil elven liches? I want to become one of those. Anyway, that won’t be for another few centuries. It’s more of a long-term plan I’ve got.”

“Well, your talking skeleton is in my basement now. I was going to use it to lure you here.”

“Awesome! I missed my super-cool talking skeleton! But hey, did you really want to lure me here?”

“Yes, to kill you… Well, maybe not you, my friend… but the rest of Trouble. I was going to turn them into zombies and have them clean my latrines.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound very fair…” replied the elf. “We’ve done nothing wrong to you. In fact, your son Avner loves us. He’s been adventuring with us as of late. Do you remember how useless he used to be, always whining and hiding from fights? Well, I have good news for you: Lagaan and Ulfgar made a man out of him! Yep, that’s right! They put him in a box, well actually, that was Belessa’s idea, and then they brought him on the boat, and then, for about a week, they beat him up, and then when we got to Scuttlecove, they sent him to the brothel with Tyralandi – who’s got no eye for true beauty, by the way – and then he became a man! When we fought the Crimson Pirates, he didn’t wet his pants, he didn’t even hide in a box like he used to! He fought with his sword! He even lost an eye, well I guess that’s not such a good thing, but Belessa grew it back with her magic. See? Trouble is full of nice people! Belessa heals people, Lagaan and Ulfgar are excellent trainers and they’ve got their brewery, and me and Raguhl, everybody loves us!”

Zebula turned a withering gaze toward the rest of our group.

“I loathe you…” he spat.

“All right, it’s sleepy time for you, your lordship,” said Raguhl before punching the obnoxious nobleman in the face.

Soon afterward, we all went to sleep as well (but in a less brutal way).

Zarvynia says “hi”

Some time later, we found ourselves at the doorstep of the Meravanchi Mansion. Lagaan took Avner’s appearance with his hat of disguise and knocked at the door. A powerful booming voice came from behind and asked our business. We pretended that Avner had come back to see his father. The guards seemed suspicious and said they would check with the boss.

After a few moments, Sparkillo used a Knock spell to open the door, and we entered the lavishly decorated residence. Two heavily-armored fire giants stood guard in the entrance hall. They were menacing at first, but we were able to chat with them for a bit and learned that seven of these giant warriors, as well as a derro sorcerer, worked for Zebula Meravanchi. We offered the giants a large bribe to turn against Zebula and the derro. The giant chief accepted and led us upstairs.

Zebula was, of course, furious to see that his guards had shown such disloyalty. He was also not very pleased to see us alive, especially not Lagaan who mentioned that Zarvynia “said hi”.

Unfortunately, our cunning plan of bribing the guards was easily turned against us, as all of our cunning plans inevitably are, by the derro spellcaster who mass-charmed the giants into attacking us. We ended up having to fight the giant chief, his sergeant, the derro and Zebula all at the same time. The two giants were very powerful. They severely wounded Raguhl and Ulfgar, and one of them almost killed Lagaan, knocking him out cold.

(OOC: Yet another action point used to avert a death.)

Thankfully, the derro’s demise was swift, as he was sliced into several pieces by Raguhl’s sword. Zebula attempted to use invisibility to avoid retribution, but I countered that easily with an Invisibility Purge spell. The panicked nobleman rifled through a heap of scrolls on the table, looking for one that could provide him with a way out of this predicament, but his search was interrupted by the raging lizardman, who subdued him most brutally.

Meanwhile, Sparkillo had blocked the staircase with a Wall of Force to prevent the other giants from attacking us. He caused our two remaining opponents great harm with two Cone of Cold spells. Once they were dead, we heard the sound of the other giants destroying the floor below us to try and gain access to the top level of the manor, where we had fought. As soon as they destroyed a section of the floor, Sparkillo blasted them with more frost spells, and then Ulfgar floated downstairs with his ring of Feather Fall and finished the job.

After I was done healing my companions, we made sure that Zebula was securely tied up and gagged and we took the time to search the mansion. We found a great many valuables there, but most interesting of all was a magical brooch that showed each of us a different magical image in its reflection. I saw tentacles writhing out of a swirling sea, but the others seemed to see other parts of Gaping Maw. According to Sparkillo, this bizarre item is the key that will grant us access to Castle Teraknian.

Adventurers two, Hookface zero

We left the former Lotus Dragon base and headed toward the Meravanchi mansion. We were in gaseous form due to my Wind Walk spell, but even in this barely noticeable form, Sasserine’s most vigilant guardian, the dracolich Hookface, detected us. He pursued us and we fled, carried by the quick magical wind. Our minds were once again linked by Sparkillo’s Telepathic Bond, and we formulated a quick and bold plan: we would draw the dragon out of the city to ensure that he would face us without the aid of the other undead guardians.

It was on a small rocky island that we stopped and began reforming into our solid shapes as the dragon flew toward us. As we did so, we noticed that a handful of elves had, by some wild misfortune, made their camp on this island. When the dracolich appeared and began battling us, those poor fools got caught in the crossfire.

I used my magic to protect the group for the dracolich’s paralyzing gaze and touch. Sparkillo shielded us from his approach and his first blast of deadly fire with a Wall of Force. As he did so, Lagaan summoned the ultimate power of his Nimbus Bow and, all of a sudden, we found ourselves in the eye of a powerful hurricane. Even the mighty undead dragon was forced to land, for he could not fly against such a strong wind. Once he was on the ground, Raguhl, Ulfgar and Lagaan rushed him. There was a terrible battle between our warriors and Hookface. The elves tried to come to our aid, but some of them were slain by the dragon, while others cowered in fear from his frightful presence. Sparkillo summoned a gigantic magical fist to aid the warriors, and Lagaan struck as he had never done before, his deadly holy rapier and undead-slaying Sunblade causing severe wounds to our foe.

Hookface fought terribly well, but in the end, he fell under the unstoppable barrage of punishment that was dealt by Raguhl, Lagaan and Ulfgar.

Once the fight was over, Lagaan stopped the hurricane. Sparkillo and I went to save those among the elves who had been blasted over the edge of the island and into the sea, me with my ring of telekinesis and him with his big giant fist. I then healed the wounds of my companions, and at the same time, one of the elves also healed those among his group who had survived. Their leader was a thin woman named Arawin; they came from the distant elven woods of Cormanthor. Arawin had come to Sasserine to study among the Witchwardens, but she and her friends had fled the city once it had been overrun by Vanthus’s forces. Since then, she had tried to study a way of battling their influence by magic, but alas, most of her research papers had been scattered by Lagaan’s fierce storm. Still, she and Sparkie were wary that the dracolich would be able to use a phylactery to rejuvenate into a new corpse in a matter of days, so Arawin offered to seek out his lair near Cauldron and look for clues about the nature and location of such a phylactery.

If looks could kill

Lord Lorchester informed us that Thergar had been captured about two days ago, and that he’d had many episodes of howling rage since then. The old man was worried that the noise would alert the undead roaming the city. In fact, this is precisely what happened just a few moments later. We heard screams and sounds of battle coming from further in the tunnels: the complex was under attack.

My companions rushed on ahead and I struggled to keep up with them in my heavy armor. As it turned out, our enemies were deadly undead called Bodaks, beings whose very stares cause death. Several of Lord Lorchester’s men had already perished in the initial assault. Within moments, Ulfgar and Lagaan also lay on the ground, struck down by the power of these fiends. They had attacked before I’d gotten a chance to shield them from the deadly magic. I protected Raguhl, Sparkillo, Lord Lorchester and myself with Death Ward spells, and we battled the invaders. Raguhl was an engine of destruction, mowing down the wicked undead with his glowing greatsword. Sparkillo approached Lagaan’s body and retrieved his Sunblade, a potent weapon against undead. He activated its special power, and the radiance of sunlight surrounded him, sending our enemies fleeing. I followed the mage toward an underground lake where he followed one of our enemies and slew it with the Sunblade – the first time I’ve ever seen Sparkillo hurt someone with a weapon!

It only took a couple minutes for the three of us to slay the seven Bodaks who had invaded the complex, but they’d had the time to kill nine of Lord Lorchester’s men. We returned to look at the bodies of Ulfgar and Lagaan and were relieved to see that they had miraculously, but barely, survived the deathly assault. I healed them as best as I could, and we carried their still-unconscious bodies to the barracks.

(OOC: Thank goodness for action points.)

“That damned Thergar is still making noise in his cell!” growled Raguhl. “He’s going to drawn the attention of all the undead in the city!”

“Then we should silence him for good,” I replied.

“But Belessa, he said he had important information to tell us,” said Sparkillo.

“So?” I replied with a shrug. “If his mistress is so powerful that she can kill us with a thought, then surely she can be bothered to come and give us this allegedly vital information about our common enemy in person. We can’t afford to have that fool keep on alerting the undead, otherwise everyone here will die.”

“She’s right, Sparkie,” said Raguhl. His massive fists clenched over the hilt of his sword. “This time, I’ll cut him up in such tiny pieces that even that Slaad won’t be able to bring him back.”

The three of us headed to the jails, and Raguhl went about his grim business. Guildmaster Dhalven Miomar showed up with three guards and loudly accused us of being the cause of the recent Bodak attack. I tried to reason with him, explaining that it was actually thanks to us that the entire complex hadn’t been wiped out, but he was very stubborn and even began to get rude.

I was really out of patience at that point. I fixed him with a freezing glare and spoke the terrible words of the Destruction spell. He shrieked in agony as a swirling black void eradicated him, and within moments, all that remained of him was a pair of smoking boots. The three guards stared at us in shock.

“Anyone else got a problem with Trouble?” I asked.

They all shook their heads.

About an hour later, a black-clad spy came back to the complex. Lord Lorchester informed us of his findings: Zebula Meravanchi had a key to Castle Teraknian and could be found at his estate, but only for a short time, for he was on his way out to somewhere else. We would have to try and catch him there before he left. Thankfully, around that time, our two other companions regained consciousness. While he had been out, Lagaan had received a vision of his ‘friend’ the Slaad. She had told him she would give him back his soul if we killed Vanthus, who was currently within the black sphere that surrounded the Vanderboren estate. But the only way inside there was to go through a portal in the basement of Castle Teraknian.

Ulfgar looked at us with bleary eyes.

“OK. We go kill Zebula at his manor. Then we go kill Edvanda and Dracktus at Castle Teraknian. Then we go kill Vanthus at his mansion and we free Lavinia. Got it. Let’s go.”

Hammer 12th, 1377

The Lotus Dragon hideout

In the morning, Lagaan used a mysterious lock of hair to summon a nymph he had befriended earlier. Her name was Zarvynia and all men gawked at her like idiots when she appeared in all her naked splendor. She seemed bound to repay an old favor to Lagaan and promised us the help of all manner of fey and woodland creatures to retake Sasserine. She was aware of what was going on over there: the city was being dragged into the Abyss and Vanthus, as a death knight, was drawing all the undead of the region to him, probably including the crew of that ghost ship we had seen earlier. Probably the deadliest of his minions was the dracolich we had observed in Sparkillo’s mirror. Zarvynia confirmed that this was what the red dragon Hookface had become after being slain by adventurers in Cauldron.

Under Vanthus’s baneful influence, the dead had risen from Sasserine’s graveyard, and now large numbers of foul zombies and skeletons prowled the streets of the beloved port. A few dozen demons were also present, sent at Demogorgon’s behest both to serve and to keep an eye on Vanthus. It was much easier for them to enter Sasserine now that it was halfway to the Abyss.

We decided to leave the Sea Wyvern in the “safe” location of Kraken’s Cove and to fly to Sasserine under a Wind Walk spell, just us five members of Trouble. As we made our way there, we noticed that we were definitely leaving the material plane, as the sky turned red and even the sheep in the fields began looking positively demonic.

We finally reached Sasserine. Portions of it were still on fire, and some demons and other menacing shadows hovered over it. The city was now bathed in an abyssal twilight, even in daytime. Here and there, frightened citizens hurried from one building to the next, trying to avoid the notice of the foul invaders. Still in gaseous form, we flew toward Dead Dog’s Alley and went down the well that we knew was one of the entrances to the former Lotus Dragon Lair, where Lord Lorchester led a small group of rebels.

It felt strange to be back in that dungeon after almost two years – we had come such a long way since then! It felt just as strange to see the haggard appearance of the survivors who had taken refuge there. There were a few priests of various religions (though no worshippers of Umberlee), but it was a tough-looking woman, a gladiator named Brillith, who led us to Lord Lorchester. The old nobleman gave us a quick rundown of the situation: there were fifty men-at-arms and around twelve nobles hiding in the complex. They were desperately trying to avoid being discovered by the undead forces and had repelled a few minor attacks already.

Among the surviving nobles were a few faces I recognized from the Dawn Council: Anwyn Arabani, the half-elven woman at the head of that family; another half-elf woman, a priestess of Shaundakul named Laralli Woarali; and Dhalven Miomar, a merchant guildmaster. Dhalven seemed very unhappy at us; for some reason, he was under the impression that Sasserine’s woes were entirely Trouble’s fault. We tried to reason with him, describing all the good deeds we’d accomplished over the past two years, even showing him our most recent trophy (Cold Captain Wyther’s head), but the fool refused to acknowledge our good intentions.

Lord Lorchester then explained that some of the city’s old leaders had joined Vanthus, some openly and others covertly. Vanthus had, apparently, just barged into the city one day and claimed Castle Teraknian as his own. Edvanda and Lord Dracktus had joined him, and it was suspected that Zebula Meravanchi had as well. And now, it seemed that whatever was dragging Sasserine toward the Abyss originated from inside the castle. None of the agents that Lord Lorchester had sent to penetrate Castle Teraknian had succeeded. It was protected by a magical barrier similar to a wall of force, and only those with special magical keys could enter.

The rebel forces had made a special prisoner in recent days, and Lord Lorchester wondered if perhaps he could help us. He warned us that it was some kind of revenant formed from the corpse of Father Thergar, the leader of the foul Chaos cult that had destroyed Fort Blackwall. A few of my companions groaned at this. It was yet another one of our enemies who had somehow found a way to be reborn as a powerful undead.

We followed our host to the jails. Thergar was held prisoner in a dark cell, bound in heavy iron chains. His skin was gray and his eyes milky white, and he still bore the scars of our last encounter: a deep axe wound from Ulfgar in his chest, and the thick gash on his throat where I had murdered him with my sacrificial knife.

Thergar seethed with rage and told us that his Mistress had brought him back from the beyond in order to contact us. This mistress was not the Queen of Chaos herself, but rather the she-b#~*# who possessed a crystal that contained part of Lagaan’s soul. She was apparently a powerful Slaad, but not one of the dreaded Death Slaad. Thergar claimed that we shared Vanthus as a common enemy, that his mistress had foreseen this day all along, and that she could’ve easily killed us with a mere thought, but had chosen not to. I wasn’t sure if he was just bluffing, but Lagaan and Ulfgar clearly didn’t take him seriously and chuckled at his bold claim. Before he could tell us what his mistress had in mind, though, he went completely berserk. Lord Lorchester had warned us that he was lucid only part of the time. Thergar breathed a cloud of black necromantic energy on us that threatened to drain our energy, but fortunately, we all resisted this attack. Lorchester closed the cell’s barred window, but Thergar was still raging loudly behind it, rattling his chains with all his might.

Hammer 11th, 1377

Return to Kraken’s Cove

It turns out that the Sea Wyvern was attacked by a trio of monstrous aberrations that unleashed a barrage of deadly spells such as Horrid Wilting, Destruction and Blasphemy on us and on the poor crew members stuck on deck: Brissa, Avner, and one of our sailors, a man named Zerulfar An’Karrabrim. Thankfully, Brissa survived long enough to drag Avner’s unconscious body back into the magical mansion, where they were healed by Liamae (none of the Jade Ravens bothered to leave the confines of the secure shelter to come to our aid). Alas, poor Zerulfar was not so lucky and ended up as a pile of smouldering ashes. What’s more, Lagaan was forced back to the Material Plane by the vile magic of our enemies.

Once the creatures were destroyed, we returned inside the mansion and healed ourselves. Liamae used a Sending spell to contact Lagaan and learned that he was safe for now, but in a desert with no visible landmarks.

We went back to bed, woke up a few hours later, and we traveled the rest of the way up to the Wake Portal that led us to Kraken’s Cove. Ratline Sid had guided us well. Once we were back on the primal plane, we learned that Lagaan would reach the city of Calimshan in a few hours. In the mean time, I contacted Lord Lorchester by magic and learned that he was now located in the old Lotus Dragons hideout. I also contacted Manthalay, and he asked me to come get him by Sparkillo’s teleportation magic. The elf and I returned to Farshore, where Manthalay was getting ready to go to Sasserine with us. However, I had something important to tell him first… alone, so Sparkillo left to give us some privacy.

I told him that we had saved my old lover Dolmord in our recent assault on the Crimson Pirate base. At first, Manthalay seemed to be perfectly fine with that and went on a long monologue about how it was fine that I’d had lovers before him, and how we would soon rule Sasserine together. For a time, I was pleasantly surprised at how well he was taking the news that I was planning on keeping Dolmord as a lover on the side.

It’s only just before we left for the Sea Wyvern that he really understood what I had meant; how much Dolmord really meant to me. He in fact did NOT take that well at all… Saying that he would never let his honor be stained like this. We had a brief argument about the whole thing. He was a fool to be so inflexible. He really cannot afford to make me angry or cast me aside. Finally, I just shrugged and said: “Fine… You can stay here, then, while we retake Sasserine.” And Sparkie and I returned to the Sea Wyvern without him.

Upon our return, we saw that the crew members were staring to the side of the Sea Wyvern at a dark spot in the distance.

“Tell me, Ulfgar,” I asked, “What do your dwarven eyes see?”

“Looks like a ghost ship,” he replied,” surrounded by fog.”

We learned that this was the Crystal Twilight, an infamous ship with an undead crew who acted as jailors for a vampire lady who was kept prisoner inside her coffin in the hold. We decided to avoid them.

Later, Sparkie went to get Lagaan, who brought back a camel in his new portable hole. He offered the animal as a gift to Avner. The nobleman sneered bitterly. He seemed quite jaded now, about the state of things and life in general. I told him that we might have to kill his father if he stood in our way. He didn’t seem to care, but said he trusted his father to put many traps in our way and perhaps even to kill us. That sweet Avner, always so endearing.

Hammer 10th, 1377

He’s no angel

Dolmord tossed and turned throughout the entire night. He was sleeping very fitfully, the poor thing. In the morning, he woke up tired and in a dour mood. When we went on deck, we noticed that everyone wore glum expressions: it seemed that every crew member had been plagued by terrible nightmares… except me. How strange.

I relieved Brissa at the helm and we continued navigating on this second day on the dangerous waters of the abyss (which, according to Sparkillo, are the home of fiendish krakens among other things…).

A few hours later, we came within sight of a strange and disturbing “ship” made of a clot of blood and meat stretched over a frame of bone. At its center shone the bright light of a bonfire. I maneuvered to avoid the “ship”, but as we passed it, we saw that an angel-like creature wreathed in flames was kept captive inside an iron cage aboard it. It was guarded by two large purple demons with four arms, which Sparkillo called Bloodfiends.

The angel-thing pleaded from afar to be released, but I ignored it and kept sailing away as fast as the Sea Wyvern could manage. The crew was relieved to be getting some distance from the weird ship, but Raguhl was growing more agitated.

“That angel needs help! We should go back and help it!”

“Absolutely not!” I replied. “Besides, it’s not an angel, it’s some kind of devil I read about it a book,” I lied.

“Err… I agree with Raguhl,” said Ulfgar. “We should go back and help that thing.”

We all turned incredulous eyes toward Ulfgar, who hadn’t ever shown such altruism in the past.

“Wait a minute,” I said after a moment. “You’re just saying that to convince your axe that you’re Good, aren’t you??”

The dwarf blushed furiously and clumsily tried to dodge the accusation, but I could read him like an open book.

“It’s a moot point, in fact,” said Sparkillo, “because Belessa is partly right. That fiery being yonder is no angel, my dear Raguhl, but rather a demon of great power.”

“There!” I said victoriously, and we finally sailed out of sight from that disturbing scene.

Some time later, we started navigating along the coast of the Screaming Jungle. Even though it was only dimly visible on the horizon, we could hear the terrible animal cries coming from within. They set our nerves on edge.

“Are we there yet?” frequently asked the crew members from our guide, Sid. But it seemed we would have to spend at least one more night in the Abyss before reaching the next Wake Portal node.

This time, Sparkillo created a Magnificent Mansion on the ship, in the hope that the crew would be able to be sheltered from the nightmares within that neutral extra-dimensional space. Indeed, it worked for the first part of the night. But we had set up watches in case of an attack, and at some point during Ulfgar’s watch, danger came looking for us.

“We’re under attack!” roared the dwarf after stepping from the Sea Wyvern’s deck and into the magical mansion. We were all woken up and immediately began scrambling to go and defend our ship.

(OOC: The characters are now level 16!)

Hammer 7th, 1377 (continued)

Dragged into the Abyss

For the rest of the day, my companions and I discussed various strategies to save Sasserine from Vanthus’s clutches. Sparkillo believed that the undead dragon was in fact a dracolich, a very dangerous creature. What’s more, he suspected that it was the infamous Hookface, a red dragon that had terrorized the city of Cauldron, not far from Sasserine, and had been driven out or slain (depending on the stories) by a band of adventurers a few years ago. It seemed that the dragon had somehow come back from death in a similar way as the arch-villain in our own adventure, that unholy bastard Vanthus.

We formulated a plan that was ingenious in its simplicity: teleport to Sasserine and fight the bad guys. Alas, that attempt was thwarted by the fact that teleportation magic seemed to be unable to “lock on” to Sasserine anymore. Sparkillo, although he was baffled and frustrated by his first few initial attempts, soon treated this like an experiment, and finally told us that Sasserine was most likely being drawn into the Abyss by some sort of dark magic.

Ratline Sid, who had been present during our discussions, offered a backup plan: he could show us how to use the Wake Stone we had found in the Wreck, to allow us to navigate the Sea Wyvern to Sasserine quickly. Although that was a bold plan, it presented three drawbacks. First, the Sea Wyvern was still badly damaged from the fight against the Crimson Pirates. Second, we would have to travel through Gaping Maw. Third, the arrival of the Sea Wyvern in Sasserine’s harbor would quite likely alert Vanthus’s minions of our presence.

Nevertheless, due to a lack of other feasible options, we chose to go along with this…

Hammer 9th, 1377

The Wake Portal

Two days later, we began our journey. I had spent the previous day using a lot of magic to patch up the Sea Wyvern, until I finally felt that it was in good enough shape to go through this perilous voyage. We left Scuttlecove that morning with a crew that included a number of new sailors, hardy souls who replace those who had perished in the recent battle. Also with us were Ratline Sid, Brissa, Dolmord and Avner. The three remaining Jade Ravens, Zan, Liamae and Kaskus came along as well, and they carried with them the bones and ashes of their leader Tolin, hoping that some day, they would be able to bring him back from the grave.

Once we had reached the deep waters, Sid showed me, Brissa and Sparkillo how to trigger and control the Wake Stone. His manipulations caused the item to pulsate in a crescendo of crackling magic, and soon, the entire ship was surrounded by harmless but eerie lightning. The air around us seemed to grow darker, and a shimmering and swirling circle of magic appeared before the Sea Wyvern. At his signal, I brought the ship through… and it felt like we were sucked into a magical vertical whirlpool…

We emerged on the other side in a maelstrom of furious waves and howling wind. The seas of the Gaping Maw were treacherous to navigate, and I was reminded of some of the worst storms that Umberlee had tossed our way. Unfortunately, I knew that this storm was special and not under the control of my goddess. We were in the realm of Demogorgon now, and he had complete mastery over his plane.

“I’ve never seen such bad weather down here!” shouted Sid over the raging storm.

Lagaan grinned maliciously. “Demorgogon must be mad that we killed his Crimson Pirates!”

Indeed, now that we were in Gaping Maw, we had judged it prudent (if perhaps a bit superstitious) not to call our hated two-headed enemy by his real name. Lagaan had been calling him “DemoRgogon” in a derisive manner for some time now, and now we all used this demeaning nickname for the duration of the trip.

For about an hour, we had to fight against the storm. I was at the helm, and with my great skill, I was able to keep the mighty Sea Wyvern topside up and to survive even the most aggressive and enormous waves. I had some help from my companions, especially Ulfgar and Raguhl with their inhuman strength and endurance. Sid was also very useful thanks to his skill as a sailor, but also because he had a magical connection to Lemoriax by his demonic nature, and was able to help us keep our bearing.

The experience was quite unsettling. Even though we had been through bad storms before, I had always felt a connection to my goddess. In here, though, we knew we were at the mercy of our enemy. A myriad of subliminal fears and uneasy feelings nagged at the consciousness of everyone on board.

Eventually, though, we left the worst of the storm behind us and began making our way in the direction that Sid indicated. Apparently, he would be able to lead us to another magical node we could use with the Wake Stone to lead us to Kraken’s Cove. Indeed, the Crimson Pirates had been navigating to that location for years, and that was the reason that the corrupted fish had started appearing there, long before the influence of the Shadow Pearl that Vanthus had broken, in fact.

“So is it true you feel a connection to Lemoriax at all times?” asked Lagaan.

“Yes… It’s right over there,” said Sid, pointing port side.

Avner eyed Sid curiously and asked him about his transformation into a Lemorian; but the half-demon only glared back in silence. It seemed it had been such an unpleasant experience that he did not wish to discuss it.

The merchants of the Sapphire Gryphon

After a few hours of smooth, if somewhat unnerving, sailing, we spotted a ship approaching us. It was a strange vessel, blue with transparent sails. It hovered some short distance above the waves. Sparkillo recognized it as belonging to a strange race called the Mercanes, powerful merchants that travel across the planes to sell powerful magical items. They approached us peacefully and invited us on board their vessel, the Sapphire Gryphon.

“So those guys have tons of magical items for sale, right?” grunted Ulfgar.

“Indeed, they are among the wealthiest beings in the multiverse,” replied Sparkillo.

“Then if we killed them… we could take all their stuff!”

“I would advise against it, my friend. Mercanes are quite powerful and know how to defend themselves against all kinds of would-be planar looters.”

The Mercanes were tall and thin, with blue skin and long elven-like ears. They were most gracious and seemed intrigued by the presence of denizens of the Material Plane in this inhospitable environment. I saw that they eyed our magical equipment with expert eyes and great interest, and I felt that they could identify the properties of our belongings with a mere glance.

Their leader introduced herself as Aloire, and I did the same for myself and the rest of the group.

“Well met, Captain Belessa Darkwave,” she said.

“Cold Captain…” corrected Lagaan, who was trying to convince me to adopt the honorific title of our fallen enemy.

We ended up staying a few hours on that ship, despite the fact that our crew had to wait nervously back on the Sea Wyvern in the mean time. The Mercanes had many potent items for sale on their ship, and assured us that they could bring us almost any magical item that we could ask for within an hour, as long as we showed them we were able to pay for it.

I thought about various items that could make me more powerful, but I finally asked for something that would be even more useful to me in the long run: some sort of item that could stop, or at least reduce, the process of aging. For some time now, as I had neared the beginning of my thirties, I had grown increasingly afraid of growing old and seeing my great beauty fade year after year. Fortunately, the Mercanes were able to fetch for me a phylactery of long years: a wonderful item that will allow me to slow down the passage of time tenfold! After asking them very specific questions to ensure they were not trying to trick me or that there would be no undesirable side-effects, I paid them the enormous sum of twenty thousand gold pieces they asked for it.

Lagaan asked for a similar item, as he was still bitter about losing several precious years of his short human life to the touch of a ghost. I didn’t have enough to afford a second such item for Dolmord, but I might seek out the Mercanes again in the future should our upcoming battle against Vanthus end in victory.

Raguhl chose a magical ivory figure of a warrior that would enable him to summon a golem-like being to help us once per day. Ulfgar ordered a very powerful holy dwarven axe from the Mercanes.

“I don’t understand,” said Raguhl, “how can you bear to let go of your current axe? It’s a powerful weapon, and it’s seen you through so many battles!”

“Yes,” conceded Ulfgar, “but the other one’s going to be so much more powerful!”

Raguhl grunted. “A true warrior would never show such disrespect to his weapon.”

The dwarf ignored him, but watched as a Mercane approached him with a concerned expression on his face. “What is it? Can’t you find the weapon I asked for?”

“Oh no, sir, we can find it all right,” replied the blue-skinned creature. “We’re just worried that you might be unsatisfied if you found yourself unable to use the item.”

“Huh? Hey, I’m a powerful and proud dwarven fighter, buddy, I’m the reigning champion of the arena in Sasserine! For sure I can wield it!”

“Well, we’re not doubting your skill, sir, it’s more your… morality that’s raising questions. You see, a holy weapon can cause great harm to someone of evil dispositions…”

“Yeah, that’s why I ordered it, to hurt the bad guys.”

“But we’re worried that perhaps… you yourself… might find it painful to wield it.”

“Huh? What? Are you accusing me of being evil?”

“Well….” said the outsider evasively.

“What the hell? I’m not evil! Tell him, guys!!” he said, turning toward us, but we all avoided the unpleasant situation by pretending to be busy inspecting the rest of the Mercanes’ wares.

Night falls over the Gaping Maw

Eventually, we parted company with the Mercanes, happy with our precious new items. We sailed for a few more hours. We were surrounded by darkness, yet somehow this was ‘day’ according to Sid. Indeed, as time wore on, we noticed that it got even darker and darker, into some kind of ‘night’. I soon felt the effects of fatigue starting: since I stopped wearing my ring of sustenance a few months ago, my body needs sleep and food just like that of any other person.

Brissa took over at the helm, and Sid remained with her to give her directions. At least, that’s what he said. I noticed the way he looked at her in recent days. I think the half-demon finds my friend quite fetching… And I wonder how Brissa’s going to respond to him. She’s playing hard to get for now, but she hasn’t knifed him yet, so I would take that as a sign that she finds him to her liking as well.

Hammer 7th, 1377

Sasserine in flames

I woke up next to Dolmord this morning. He was still sleeping. I smiled, thinking back of the pleasurable night we had spent together… Despite the revelations I’d been forced to make, I was so happy to have him with me again.

Some time later, we joined my companions in the main room of the mansion. I caught a glimpse of amusement in Lagaan’s eyes, as it was now clear that Dolmord was much more than a bodyguard to me. Avner was also present, and he stared at me for a long time in silence, probably wondering how Dolmord’s presence would affect my relationship with his uncle.

I sat down at the main table and we tried to determine what our next step would be. We had just been tremendously victorious over the Crimson Pirates, yet Lavinia was still captive and Vanthus was still at large. We knew we could not rest for long before trying to fix that situation.

We decided to try and divine Lavinia’s location through Sparkillo’s crystal ball. The device was not infallible, though, and anyone with a moderately strong mind could easily resist that magic unless they knew it wasn’t an attack. I used a Sending spell to inform Lavinia to open her mind, and then Sparkillo observed her through the device. We all looked over his shoulder and saw that the poor woman was badly battered, disheveled, shackled in demonic iron chains and in a dark prison whose walls writhed as though made from damned souls. Was she in the Abyss? She didn’t know where she was… and could not help us find her.

Later, I asked for Umberlee’s advice through a Divination spell, and she replied:

“The heroes, mortals who stood in the way of the two-headed prince.
Where their adventure started, there it will end.
The victory or ignominious death is shrouded in the mist of probabilities.
But there waits the once dead pirate.
His forked tongue rallied to him all the Wicked of the city.
Blood flows, fire burns and grown men cry.
Belessa, your goddess’s final test awaits there.”

And with these divine words came the sense of a sinister laughter. Umberlee herself was laughing at this turn of events. The meaning of the last part of the message was clear: she was pitting me against Edvanda, and wanted to be entertained by the struggle of her two rival priestesses.

At some level, I found it revolting that our goddess would treat us like her playthings. At another level, I also welcomed the chance to destroy the loathsome Edvanda. It had been a long time coming. I would finally show her how wrong she had been to mess with me when I had first arrived in Sasserine. I would kill her, and the church of Umberlee would regain the glory it had known under the guidance of the previous wise High Priestess.

So to you, my goddess who wishes to see a good fight, my goddess who rewards my devotion with yet more danger and obstacles, I say: “Bring it on, b!*&~…”

Sparkillo spent some time scrying on Sasserine with his crystal ball, and the images we saw there were disheartening: buildings were on fire, demons were roaming the streets, and a huge skeletal dragon was crouched atop Lathander’s temple. The estate of Sparkillo’s parents, the Rashi family, had been destroyed. Lavinia’s manor was shrouded by a huge black sphere.

“Our brewery, what about our brewery?” asked Ulfgar anxiously, but Sparkillo had grown disgusted with the vision and had already turned away from the crystal ball. I felt a strong sense of dread at seeing the beautiful city in this terrible state, but it must have been much harder on him, as he had grown up there.

“This is Vanthus’s doing…” growled Raguhl.

“But why?? What does he have to gain by destroying Sasserine?” asked Ulfgar.

“Why don’t I ask him?” I replied, as I started the ritual of another Sending.

My message to Vanthus was quite simple: “Why are you doing this?” Alas, he did not reply with anything constructive, merely taunting me into coming to the burning city to meet my death. Lagaan asked me to do a second sending to insult Vanthus’s manhood, but I waved him away warily.

I am beyond such infantile pranks. It is time we rid the world of Vanthus Vanderboren, and this time, for good. We will have to return to Sasserine and destroy him.

The truth about our son

The sun slowly set over the despicable port of Scuttlecove on this first day of freedom from the menace of the Crimson Pirates.

I walked toward the Sea Wyvern in the company of Ratline Sid and Dolmord. My lover stood tall and proud at my side, still wearing the heavy plate armor we had given him. He had shaved his beard during my absence, and I noticed that his cheeks were more hollow than before. Although he was still muscular, he had lost a lot of weight during his ordeal in the Crimson Pirates’ prison. His jet-black hair hung long over his shoulder, and there was a menace in his eyes that had not been there before, even though he had already been a fierce warrior. Despite all he had gone through, though, he still managed to look strikingly handsome. Now there was a man I could be proud to have at my side… A man worthy of me.

We had ensured that Ratline Sid got the chance to clean up from the time he had also spent in captivity of the Crimson Pirates, and we had given him a silk and leather outfit we had looted from a recently deceased pirate. With a dagger, he had slightly altered its back to make room for his demonic wings. A sabre and a dagger now hung at his belt.

I gave the two men the grand tour of the Sea Wyvern, noting as I did so that the crew was making good progress so far with the repairs. Sid nodded knowingly: he realized what a magnificent ship the Sea Wyvern was, despite her recent damage.

“She looks strangely familiar, she does,” he said.

I grinned. “That’s because she used to be one of yours. We found her in Kraken’s Cove after Vanthus left her there to burn. She was flying the colors of the Crimson Pirates at the time, but of course, once we made her our own, we decorated her with Sasserine’s flag instead.”

“What about that other banner, under the flag?” he asked.

“That’s the symbol of the Meravanchi family; this is the prime battleship of Farshore, the colony ruled by Manthalay Meravanchi, my…” I suddenly stopped, realizing I was about to make a blunder and abruptly reveal that I was engaged. “… my mayor. The Mayor of Farshore.”

Thankfully, neither of the men seemed to have noticed my hesitation. I introduced Sid to Brissa (I had already introduced Dolmord the day before, after the battle) and to the rest of the crew. The Lemorian seemed disappointed that I had named her my first mate, for he had coveted that position. However, I insisted that it would be Brissa who would be in charge of the Sea Wyvern in my absence. I made it very clear that anyone who tried to harm her would meet a swift and painful death at my hand.

I then walked back with Dolmord toward the Rusty Shunt, where the rest of Trouble awaited us within Sparkillo’s Magnificent Mansion. A strange mood hung over Scuttlecove, which was reeling from the loss of so many of the independent pirate crews who had helped us and perished against the Crimson Pirates. And only a few days before that, the city had been besieged by the foul swarms that had come from the Ur-Priests’ palace. I felt that a power shift was going on in this miserable and corrupt city. The Consortium of Kedward Bone, that despicable opportunist, was the only faction that had not participated in yesterday’s battle, and as such, it was the only one that had emerged entirely unscathed from the conflict. The Dire Hunger Monks had lost many of their brothers in our cause. The Protectorate had lost their leader; I wondered if they would choose Harliss as their new leader. And if they did, I wondered if she would accept…

Dolmord and I dined briefly with the other people in the magical mansion: the rest of Trouble, the surviving Jade Ravens, as well as Avner. But soon enough, we retired to our room… We could barely contain ourselves… As soon as we were alone, our lips met, and we kissed with fiery passion before we began fumbling with the straps of each other’s armor.

Once our metallic protection and our flimsier undergarments littered the floor, we found ourselves together in bed… At long last. We had been apart from each other from so long, we had both suffered so much during the past few years… Yet dreaming of each other’s touch… Our reunion was magical, all the accumulated longing we had felt in each other’s absence flowed like a torrent of emotions and blissful sensations.

Malbrecht the foul barbarian, Brother Korvosan the cursed cultist of chaos, Norrix the righteous paladin, boyish Lagaan, my beloved Manthalay and his foul snake of a brother, Zebula, were all forgotten now that I was reunited with Dolmord, my one true love… The only man who could ever really, really please me.

For some time after we were done “reuniting”, we simply lay against each other in blissful silence, communicating not with words but with caresses and sensations. But alas, even this blessed period of calm pleasure had to come to and end… For there was much we had to say to each other.

Dolmord had many terrible things to relate about the torments he had suffered while he was a prisoner of the Crimson Pirates. Those things were deeply troubling, and I could scarcely believe that my dear lover was able to survive through them and not lose his sanity completely. Although I had at times done some terrible things to my enemies, I had never contemplated some of the horrors that were inflicted upon him. Those things were far too disgusting to even mention in my journal.

I had my share of adventures to tell Dolmord, but foremost on our mind was the fate of our son. I finally explained it plainly to him… that which I had avoided until then.

Our son had been sacrificed to Umberlee by the priests in Calimshan just after I had given birth, on the beach one night. By paying this terrible price, the goddess had restored within me the infinite potency of her divine magic.

Dolmord’s eyes widened in shock and anger, but he did not lash out at me with fist or with harsh words. A dark shadow passed over his face, and he turned away from me as he contemplated the enormity of what I had just said. For me, the pain was still sharp, but it was also distant and had grown fainter over the years; but for him, it stung as if it had just happened.

I had been afraid – no, terrified – of what his reaction would be. I was relieved that he remained calm and silent, at least on the outside. I had been carrying the guilt of our son’s death for these past several years like a huge boulder. In a way, it was my fault that he was dead. If I had not been weak in the first place, if I had not been foolish enough to fail Umberlee against Denek Drellrane’s group of adventurers, she would not have taken away my powers… And there would have been no need to sacrifice our son.

I had always been able to ease the pain by telling myself that it had not truly been my fault, not directly at least. Those zealots were the ones who had slain my son. I had done what little I could to stop them, but I had been too weak to do it. I had been a victim… A victim of something terrible.

But I knew… I knew that if I looked deep within my own soul… That if I had been given the choice between my son’s life, or my own power… The infinite power of Umberlee…

I knew I would have accepted the sacrifice.

I would have done it myself if I’d had to.

But Umberlee had been merciful… She had allowed me to play the role of a victim… So I could go on living with myself.

Of course, I did not speak this out loud. I feared Dolmord’s anger, not because he could harm me; he was stronger than me physically, but my magic was so powerful that I could never be truly in danger from him. No, because I loved him so much, I couldn’t bear to feel his anger, his hatred, especially not now that we had just been reunited; I couldn’t bear to feel that I had failed him as a lover, as a mother to his child… He was one of the few people whose opinion mattered to me.

So I cried… I cried like the poor hapless victim that Umberlee, in her great wisdom, had turned me into. I cried also because it felt so good to finally let go of this emotional burden. I had only told a few people… Moretta… Brissa… Lagaan… about my son’s death, but I had never felt the release that I felt now that I finally revealed it to Dolmord… The only one who was truly concerned.

Thankfully, Dolmord comforted me. I hope he never finds out about the dark shadow in my heart. I hope he never suspects what my decision would have been if I had been given the choice.

“We can have other children,” he said. “Now that I’m free, we can be together forever…”

Of course, that brought new tears down my cheeks.

“Keep it up, you hypocrite,” said a little voice in my head. “You’re doing great so far. Cry like a baby. Cry him a whole fricking river if you have to. You’ve been a naughty, naughty girl while the poor guy was getting tortured every day. Getting your son killed for personal gain and whoring around with every other man you ran into while you KNEW Dolmord was getting tortured and you did NOTHING to help him. Oh yeah… You’re going to need to cry an ocean to make him swallow the fact that you got ENGAGED while he was being tortured…”

Of course, the little voice was right. It was my conscience, that inner voice that had remained silent for most of my life. For some reason, the prissy little b$%&* was on the offensive tonight. But I knew she was right. I had to tell Dolmord about my engagement to Manthalay. I had to tell him… I felt so ashamed of some of the things I’d done while he had been captive, when the only thing had been keeping him alive were his thoughts for me and our son… Him, already dead, me, entirely unfaithful…

“I would like that, Dolmord,” I said in a weak voice, “but there’s more. I thought you were dead. I… met someone else. I’m engaged. But I still love you… I … don’t know what to do. I never stopped loving you, I never stopped thinking about you. And once I realized you were still alive, it was the only thing keeping me sane through the countless ordeals I had to endure, along with the rest of Trouble… We’ve faced so many hardships… It was killing me inside not to be able to come to save you, knowing all this time that you were being tormented here…

“But you finally came through and saved me.”

“Yes.”

“Who is this man… your fiancé?”

“Manthalay Meravanchi, a noble. He’s the ruler of Farshore and a member of one of the most powerful houses in Sasserine.”

“A man of power… He must be very rich,” said Dolmord in a dull voice.

“Yes… I was hoping to help him become one of the rulers of Sasserine. I… He was the smart choice… back when I thought we could never be together again.”

“Do you love him?”

I paused. “He is a good man,” I finally said. “He’s treated me well. In fact, in many ways, he reminds me of Stalman. He is… quite a bit older than me. But I’ve never felt about him the way I feel about you… My heart and my soul have always been yours. Just like they were when we met back in Starmantle… when you stole my heart away from Stalman’s grip.”

Dolmord stared deep into my eyes… it was true, after all. He already knew I was not a faithful woman. It was my lust for Dolmord that had led me to cheat on my old lover and master Stalman Klim in the first place.

“So even with this nobleman Meravanchi in the picture,” he said, “you and I can still be together… Like in Starmantle?”

I gently moved closer to him. My lips hovered near his.

“Like in Starmantle,” I breathed.

Our lips met, and we kissed passionately. We would never let anything tear us apart again.

Back to the Wreck

Later on in the afternoon, my companions sought me out and asked me to go back to the Wreck with them to finish clearing up the place. Why they wanted to do that was beyond me, since we had already looted as much as our packs and portable hole could carry from the place, but since I knew they would get badly hurt or even die without my help, I humoured them and tagged along. Sparkillo teleported us back to a spot in the jungle that was close to the Wreck, and we flew over there.

The place was still eerily quiet and deserted. It was clear that none of the fugitive ships had slithered back into this abode. We only met pockets of resistance here and there, for the most part desperate pirates who knew their leader was dead. Some fought with desperation and died. Others threw down their weapons in surrender, begged for mercy, and also died. Only one grizzled sea dog was spared. His name was Old Ben, and he claimed to have once sailed aboard the Cold Captain’s ship, a fast and deadly vessel called the Crimson Scar, which had for some bizarre reason been commandeered by Vanthus.

I found myself once again wondering about the strange relationship between Cold Captain Wyther, that dreaded legend of the sea, possibly the most fearsome pirate in existence, and Vanthus, that treacherous upstart, who had joined the ranks of the Crimson Pirates less than two years ago. Why had the canny old captain let himself be manipulated and pushed to the side by Vanthus? Was it really just because of Vanthus’s silver tongue, or was there something more to him than all that we’d heard from his associates? We knew that the Cold Captain had been a chosen of Demogorgon himself; could Vanthus have enjoyed an even greater status in the Demon Lord’s eyes? Did he have some special, inhuman power that had allowed him to rise to fame and power like this? Was there another evil power that backed him up?

Old Ben had many interesting stories about the Cold Captain and the other Crimson Pirates, but little that mattered much in the immediate future. He described to us some of the denizens of the place, including the Yuan-Ti that laired in one of the higher ships and a nasty sea monster called an Eye of the Deep. This terrible creature had followed the Crimson Scar when it had returned from one of its journeys in the Abyss. The Cold Captain had somehow befriended the monster and had convinced it to stay in the warehouse for years, devouring the prisoners that were sometimes fed to it. It was apparently a truly dreadful adversary, and we decided to leave it alone.

Continuing our cleaning of the place, we easily slaughtered the defenders of the central tower that we had taken such great pains to avoid the previous day. Then, we flew up to the Yuan-Ti ship, where we fought more assassins of the Seventh Coil, as well as their ultimate master, a disgusting amalgam of snakes that was even larger and fouler than the Leech we had fought at Red Foam Whaling. It blasted my companions with a Blasphemy spell that completely failed to affect me, and its poisonous bites would’ve been deadly had we not all been protected by a Heroes’ Feast spell. But we killed it, and put an end once and for all to the menace of the Seventh Coil.

The ship where the harpies had been standing sentinel was now deserted – the foul winged women had wisely fled the area once they’d realized how deadly we were.

We returned to the prisons and freed Ratline Sid, who was amazed at what we had accomplished. He asked if he could join our crew, and although I knew he was not trustworthy, I invited him. We had lost many good men against the Crimson Pirates, and we would need some competent sailors and pirates to replace them. What’s more, it pleased me to know that one of our former enemies was now working for us.

Raguhl was not happy at all that I had accepted Sid among our crew, and he insisted that we free the prisoners in the cages throughout the Wreck. Many of those pitiful wretches had already died from thirst and mistreatment, but we saved those we could.

Once we were done, we returned to Scuttlecove, where Old Ben entertained us with more of his tales of the Crimson Pirates, including those of his trips to Lemoriax in Gaping Maw. He acted real nice to us, but I knew his survival instincts were sharp, and that he merely had a knack for always being on the winning side, which happened to be us at the moment. He was not one that could be fully trusted.

Hammer 6th, 1377

Return to Scuttlecove

The sun arose the following morning, illuminating the surviving ships in its golden radiance. The sky was pure blue, and throughout its azure expanse flew countless sea gulls. The lovely birds had been drawn to the location of the previous day’s battle, for among the enormous quantity of flotsam that still surrounded our wounded ships, many corpses still floated. The sharks and other terrible creatures that had floated up from the deep sea had been so thoroughly sated that there were even some leftovers for the flying scavengers…

I used my magic to do more hasty repairs on the Sea Wyvern, to enable it to sail back to Scuttlecove. But it would need much more work before it was restored to a satisfactory state. I would need to make sure the surviving crew members saw to that. I also checked up on Avner in the morning, and used one of my most potent spell to regenerate his eye, just as I had done once before for Brissa. Once the miracle was performed, he blinked in amazement. Perhaps for the first time, he fully understood the potency of Umberlee’s blessings.

For the next few hours, we sailed back toward Scuttlecove. A ragged crowd awaited our return on the docks; they seemed bewildered to see us return alive, and even more so once we set foot in the port and told them what had happened to the Crimson Pirates. None of them had ever dared to hope that the Crimson Pirates could ever be driven to defeat as they had.

In the first hours of the afternoon, I spent some time with Harliss, speaking with the captains of allied vessels, giving them some payments of gold and precious items as a reward for their help. All around us, the pirates cheered and drank as they swapped stories of the previous day’s glorious battle. Even though they all had fought bravely, they knew that the real heroes of the conflict had been us, the members of Trouble, and there was a healthy dose of respect, awe and fear when they looked at us.

For the first time since the battle had been won, I had the chance to speak with Moretta. She told me of how the battle had gone aboard her ship, and how Umberlee had answered her prayers and enabled her to defend herself against the enemy. It was clear that she was held in high regard by our goddess.

“You have done well, my dear Moretta,” I said. “It fills my heart with pride to know that the one who was once my acolyte is now such a worthy priestess of Umberlee.”

Her eyes widened in shock, as those were the first kind words I had spoken to her in a long time. Then, a smile slowly crept across her face. “Thank you, Belessa. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.”

“This place could use the guidance of a priestess of Umberlee,” I said, looking at the dirty buildings of Scuttlecove. “But it will be dangerous to stay here… That priestess will need to be strong.”

“Yes… I don’t think I’ll ever become as strong as you are, but I’ll make sure that the citizens of this place show proper respect to the Queen of the Deeps from now on. I’ll rededicate the temple of Talos to our mistress, and soon its halls will echo with the sounds of worship. And what about you? You’re going to go back to Farshore, aren’t you?”

“Yes, for a while at least. Then, perhaps, I’ll return to Sasserine. Or perhaps not. My future is less clear than it was a year ago.”

“I’m sure things are about to get complicated…” she said. “With Dolmord in the picture now.”

I smiled. It seemed that Moretta had recovered her wits; perhaps Tolin’s negative influence was wearing off at last. I had confided so much in her back during our first journey on the Sea Wyvern, so she knew me quite well.

“Yes… A lot more complicated," I replied. “It shall be interesting to see how things develop.”

A long silence followed.

“Moretta, it is quite possible that the rivers of our lives will flow apart from one another once I leave Scuttlecove,” I said. “Things will never be the same between us, they simply cannot be, but know that I will always cherish the good times we had together in Sasserine and aboard the Sea Wyvern. I will always remember my beloved acolyte of yesteryear.”

The young woman nodded. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. “I will never forget you, Belessa, but I pray that our paths will cross again after you leave.”

Victory on bloody waves

Some of the Crimson Pirates ships had fled the battle upon hearing about our arrival, and more of them fled as it became clear that they would not win this battle. They headed not for the Wreck, but for the open sea. They knew that no safety could be found in their former base. Among those who fled was their strongest ship, from which the wizard Zaliax Carvanxi had cast deadly spells at our allies, and had summoned powerful demons. I would’ve loved to see a duel of magic between him and Sparkillo, but it would not happen, at least not today.

My companions and I returned aboard the Sea Wyvern. A great cheer went up among our surviving allies once it became clear that we had won the day. The sea all around us was red not only with blood, but also from the light of the setting sun.

“We did it! They turned tail like the slug-sucking scum that they are!” panted Harliss. Her leather outfit was cut in dozens of places, showing many bloody wounds, and her rapier was covered in blood as well. It was clear that she had given them hell.

“Yes, my friend,” I replied. “We won the day… The Crimson Pirates are no more. Sure, some of them will likely go back to doing minor raids on small coastal towns, but we won’t have to worry about them as a large-scale organization ever again.”

“You braved the Wreck,” she said, her eyes wide with disbelief. “And you killed Cold Captain Wyther! How did you manage that?”

I told her about our adventure in the Wreck, including how we had saved Dolmord and Liamae, and learned that Dolmord’s life was tied to the defense of the Wreck. I told her about the demons we’d fought, and the Cold Captain himself. I also told her that neither Vanthus nor Lavinia had been present. But most of all, I thanked her for what she had done today. Without her brilliant tactic, without the rag-tag fleet of pirates she had brought together, we would not have been able to infiltrate the Wreck so easily. I was pleased to have participated in this battle with Harliss. We were both powerful women of the sea, and although our paths had only briefly crossed until today, our destinies had merged and made the glorious events of this day possible. Under the light of the dying sun, we shook hands in victory.

A great many souls had been sent to Umberlee’s domain today; many of our allies had given their lives to make our victory possible. Among them were more than half of our crew, including the dwarf Stragdar, who had been with us since we had first sailed from Sasserine. Harliss, Brissa and Zan had survived, by Umberlee’s mercy. Moretta was also still alive; she had been aboard another ship along with Kaskus, who had also survived.

I was surprised to hear that Avner had fought alongside the crew, once again showing that Lagaan and Ulfgar had truly finally made a man out of him. I went to congratulate him on his bravery, but recoiled in shock: his right eye had been pierced during the fight, and half of his face was covered in dry blood. He watched me proudly with his remaining eye; he spoke not a single word. The useless, arrogant fop was gone, and the man who remained seemed hard as steel, a warrior of few words. Despite his stoic stance, I reassured him that it would be within my power to regrow his eye once I had regained my energies tomorrow.

Among our allies, many of the Dire Hunger Monks had died, and so had Rizl Tomodar, the leader of the Protectorate. Those had been our primary helpers among the various factions of Scuttlecove: Kedward Bone hadn’t helped at all, and Tyralandi had only sent a token force, a few succubi and some charmed warriors.

The survivors among the mercenaries hired by Harliss looted the corpses of our enemies, along with those of their dead comrades. I knew Harliss had promised them some hefty rewards in exchange for rising up against the Crimson Pirates, and we assured her that we would give them a share of the Crimson Pirates’ treasure for their services.

Lagaan was watching Ulfgar with a smug smile: the dwarf was fuming because he had lost his stupid kill-count contest to the nimble archer. But as he was inspecting the bodies, Lagaan suddenly drew his rapier and stabbed one of the Lemorian captains, who had been lying on the deck of the Sea Wyvern but hadn’t been quite dead yet.

“Was that someone you knew?” asked Raguhl, surprised by the rogue’s sudden outburst.

“Yeah,” replied Lagaan. “That was the third and last of the traitors who betrayed my associates in Sasserine to join the Lotus Dragons. It seems this one made it far, even becoming a Lemorian Captain of the Crimson Fleet… But he still died in the end, stupid prick.”

My beautiful Sea Wyvern had also terribly suffered during the battle. The sails were slashed, the hull had taken severe damage, and water was leaking through several holes. While Raguhl and Ulfgar helped the crew to dump the corpses of our enemies overboard, I used what little magic I still had left within me after the battle to hastily repair as much as I could, in order to at least ensure that the ship wouldn’t sink. One of the crewmen suggested that we abandon ship and claim one of the enemy vessels that were in a better state instead. He recoiled in fright as soon as he caught sight of the withering glare I turned in his direction. I made it very clear that abandoning the Sea Wyvern was not an option; it was my ship, and I cared for it like a mother for her child.

Hmm, a strange analogy perhaps… While I busied myself at this task, Dolmord remained close to me. He had protected me during the entire battle, sustaining a few wounds, but nothing I couldn’t heal. He fought well, but I could tell he was in awe of the power I now wielded. I had already been a rather powerful priestess back in Starmantle, but I had merely been Stalman Klim’s concubine, and I had wielded but a fraction of the power I had now been granted by Umberlee, as her Hierophant. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be forced to tell him what had happened to our son… but I truly dreaded that moment, and busied myself to delay it as much as possible.

Liamae came to see me at one point and informed me that she had used the entire power of my healing wand to save people. That b~#**! The wand had been almost brand new… I wasn’t entirely convinced that she had truly used its powers to save lives only. I bet she used it up just out of spite…

Several other ships beside the Sea Wyvern were too damaged to return to Scuttlecove yet, so we decided to remain in the area during the night and finish the repairs in the morning. Under the glittering stars, I performed a nocturnal ceremony to Umberlee, to dedicate today’s slaughter to her glory. This had been a great day for her, and would not have been a victory had she not channelled some of her energy through me to make it possible. In the distance, I saw the lights of another ceremony on the ship where Moretta was staying: she was also performing such a ceremony in the honor of our goddess. Good… At least there was still some sense left in that girl.

As part of the ceremony, I also prayed for the souls of those who had died today as our allies, for them to sail eternally in peace on the Sea of the Dead, without being tormented by our mistress. I spoke a special prayer for Stragdar, whose body we placed on one of the Sea Wyvern’s lifeboats and cast off to sea… He had been a faithful crew member throughout the many deadly perils of our travels, and it was unfortunate that he had perished today, but at least, his end had come as any worshipper of Umberlee wishes it to be, in a glorious naval battle.

Finally, weariness overcame us and we retired to our quarters, below deck, since Sparkillo lacked the energy to create a Magnificent Mansion. Much to my regret, it was quite crowded downstairs, and I had to allow some of our allies, Harliss, Brissa and Sparkillo, to join Dolmord and me in the captain’s cabin. Despite my great fatigue, my body ached Dolmord’s touch, as it had done for years, but it seemed we would have to wait for one more night to be alone at last… The tension was killing me, but on the bright side, it postponed the revelation of our child’s fate by one more night…

Against the Crimson Fleet

We materialized inside the captain’s cabin - my cabin - on the Sea Wyvern. We could hear the sounds of a furious battle raging over us, the thud of heavy booted feet scrambling up on deck, the howls of bloodthirsty pirates rushing into battle, and the screams of men being cut down by sharp blades. The other members of Trouble stood at my side, ready to bring the pain to the hated Crimson Pirates: Ulfgar, squat and stable like a slab of granite, dressed in his massive, gleaming plate armor, carrying a heavy shield and his beloved dwarven waraxe that shone with magical ice. Raguhl, the enormous grey-and-green scaled lizardman and whose strange amber eyes blinked in readiness for battle. Lagaan, who looked less boyish than ever and who seemed quite ready to deal death with the Nimbus bow that the Olman gods had given him. Sparkillo, dressed in black robes and wielding his frost staff, his brow furrowed over clear blue eyes as he focused his magical energy for the difficult fight ahead.

I had removed the glamer that had given me the appearance of a Crimson Pirate and had regained my true form: dressed in my deep blue plate armor engraved with sharks, wielding my trident that glowed with a blue flame and carrying a heavy shield of dark metal.

Dolmord also stood with us: he was dressed in an ornate plate armor and wielded a large sword. Despite everything he had gone through, he would fight at our side today.

Last and least was Liamae. She was dressed in rags and most of the bruises of her mistreatment still showed. She had no magic left in her, so her usefulness would be more limited than ever, but there was still something she could do: I gave her one of my healing wands, so that she might help the wounded.

I fetched a bloody trophy from the portable hole, and then we hurried upstairs. The deck of the Sea Wyvern was littered with corpses of allies and foes alike. Only a few members of our crew were still standing against a tide of Crimson Pirates. Among them were Harliss, Brissa and Zan. Many of the pirates turned to face us when they noticed our arrival. Ulfgar and Raguhl stepped forward ahead of me with their deadly weapons drawn. I lifted high the trophy that I had retrieved from the portable hole: the bloody head of Cold Captain Wyther! I saw the shock and fear in the eyes of the Crimson Pirates when they beheld their former master. They could never have believed that he could be slain…

“Crimson Pirates!” I shouted above the din of battle. “Behold what remains of your master! He is dead, slain by the merciless blades of Trouble! And now, you despicable worms, you are going to pay for daring to attack the Sea Wyvern!”

A wave of anger and dread washed over the pirates on board. Some howled in rage and rushed toward us, only to be cut down by the blades of our warriors or slain by Lagaan’s arrows. Others panicked and jumped back on their ships, spreading word of our arrival and of the Cold Captain’s demise.

The Crimson Pirates had been on the verge of victory. They had outnumbered Harliss’s forces two to one from the start, and they were mightier combatants than most of our allies. When Sparkillo had been able to inform Harliss of the Crimson Pirates’ battle plans by magic, it had prevented them from achieving a quick victory, but still, they had maintained the upper hand and their victory had been all but assured. Once we joined the battle, though, and showed them that the Cold Captain had been slain, the tide of battle turned. The Crimson Pirates’ spirit was broken at that moment, and from that point on, they fought chaotically and inefficiently. Their blades shook in their hands, and many of them regretted ever joining the Cold Captain’s cause.

The enemies that had boarded the Sea Wyvern fell quickly before our deadly onslaught. I hurried and levitated toward Tyria to revive her. Once she regained consciousness, she directed her flying carpet toward the deck of the Sea Wyvern, where she helped us finish off the enemies. Meanwhile, Dolmord fought alongside our warriors, Liamae healed Harliss and the others with my wand, and Sparkillo was already blasting some enemy ships with his deadly magic.

Once the Sea Wyvern was clear of enemies, we teleported aboard an enemy ship, bringing the battle to them. The pirates were shocked to see the deadly members of Trouble – this group of adventurers they had heard so much about – appearing suddenly out of nowhere. Raguhl and Dolmord charged into the fray, while Ulfgar roared merrily: “Let’s start another contest to see who kills the most!” And with that, he crushed a pirate’s ribcage with his dwarven waraxe.

The carnage was going on all around me. Pirates fell to the deck, skewered by Dolmord’s blade or cut in two by Raguhl’s massive greatsword. Many others fell, pierced and shocked to death by Lagaan’s electrical arrows. Others were frozen in place by the icy magic of Sparkillo’s staff. In the mean time, I called upon Umberlee’s power to assault our enemies. I knew she was watching the fight, and relishing the rage, the fear, the pain and the countless deaths. I could feel her power surge through my being more strongly than I ever had. I could sense her reach out through me, her Hierophant, to crush the pawns of Demogorgon with her furious power.

A cyclone appeared on some Crimson Pirate ships, causing mayhem amidst their crew. A huge maelstrom suddenly opened within the blood-red waters, twisting and turning madly, inexorably drawing several ships into its crushing vortex; all the poor fools aboard those ships perished within moments, their souls sent straight down to Umberlee’s watery domain deep below the surface, damned for all eternity.

Many of Umberlee’s servants answered my summons, air elementals and creatures of the deep sea, coming to the surface to gorge themselves on the flesh and blood of the foolish land-dwellers who had dared intrude upon the domain of the goddess of storms. I watched them all die, those hated Crimson Pirates, those raiders, murderers, rapists, thieves, liars, cheaters, those heretics who had turned away from the goddess of the sea to serve a treacherous Demon Lord who had used them to threaten the very existence of our world. It was because of them that the Shadow Pearls had been sent to the four corners of Faerun. So it was with a great sense of satisfaction that I savoured their screams, the look of fear in their eyes as I saw them be devoured by sea monsters or torn asunder by the fury of Umberlee’s storm. Through me, she rained ice and lightning on the enemy, freezing and burning the flesh of all on board.

It was a long battle, but we did it: we crushed the Crimson Pirates. All of our enemies either died or fled. This day, the reign of the Crimson Pirates ended, and the legend of Trouble grew greater than ever before.

The treasure

We found a large key ring on Cold Captain Wyther’s belt, and amidst the keys there was one that allowed us to open the large vault door leading to the rest of the ship. Lagaan opened it and was the first to see beyond, that in a large room with walls made of magically enhanced lead was being kept the Crimson Fleet’s treasure: heaps of gold pieces, sacks of plundered loot and chests overflowing with coins and gems. However, this hoard was guarded by a large and vicious daemon armed with a big sword. Lagaan only had time to shoot one arrow at the creature before being rushed by it and knocked out momentarily by one of its claw.

The two warriors moved to the doorway, where they fought the terrible monster. It was powerful, more powerful in fact than the Cold Captain himself, and worst of all was its claw, which could stun even the mightiest warrior. Sparkillo blasted the daemon with a Disintegrate spell that didn’t do much, and then switched to Magic Missiles. I protected Raguhl with a Death Ward, and then kept him alive with two Heal spells. Finally, after dealing many strong blows to the daemon, our warriors vanquished it. Raguhl’s sword opened a large gash in the monster’s chest and pierced its last heart.

Once Raguhl and Lagaan were healed, we entered the treasure chamber. We stood at the entrance for a few moments, stunned by the wondrous sight of so much treasure. We could scarcely believe our eyes: the accumulated treasure of the Crimson Fleet from so many years of raiding cities and villages across the region… And now it was ours!

We spent about half an hour going over the treasure, selecting the most valuable-looking items, because we knew that all of this wouldn’t fit even in the portable hole. One item of particular interest was a chest of dark metal decorated with seven gargoyle heads. Sparkillo identified this as the Chest of Athruman, a legendary arcane trickster who had created many highly trapped and secure containers. This was apparently his masterpiece. Thankfully, Lagaan remembered the sequence of spells we’d found in the Cold Captain’s quarters, and noticed that the gargoyle heads could be manipulated to have different facial expressions. He then handled them one by one, placing each with the mood related to the appropriate spell in the list: fear, anger, sorrow or joy. Once that was done, as he had guessed, the chest opened safely.

Within it, we found more treasure, including six black pearls (normal ones, not Shadow Pearls), a gold crown set with four rough emeralds, and the biggest gem anyone of us had ever seen, a ruby of almost impossible size and beauty. Sparkillo told us that, according to legend, those who claimed it were destined for a quick death. Nevertheless, we decided to take it, but not to touch it yet, so I used my ring’s power of telekinesis to place it within the portable hole.

Another of the items in the magic chest was a round metal plate with abyssal runes written on it. Sparkillo said this was a wake portal, a device that could be attached to a ship’s wheel to enable it to travel to other planes of existence, such as the Abyss. He then surmised that it explained why there were so many deformed fish in the region: perhaps it was not because of the Shadow Pearls after all, but rather, because some of the Crimson Fleet captains had used wake portals to sail to and from the Abyss, bringing back with them some deformed abyssal fish.

Another item we found in the room was a crystal ball that had been hidden underneath a cloth. Sparkillo found that it could be used to scry on people and communicate by telepathy. He used it to look at Harliss, who was fighting on the Sea Wyvern’s deck, which was littered with corpses of friends and foes alike. Several Dire Hunger Monks fought at her side, slaying Crimson Pirates all around them. In the background, we saw a number of ships on fire, and others that were sinking. Tyria floated, unconscious, on her flying carpet. A Crimson Captain approached Harliss from behind to attack her, but he himself was stabbed in the back by Zan and fell on the deck.

We had slain the captain of the Crimson Fleet. We had taken as much as we could carry from his treasure vault. We had freed Dolmord and Liamae. Lavinia and Vanthus were, seemingly, not in the Wreck. We had done all we could here. Now, it was time to go help our allies against the Crimson Fleet. We locked the vault’s door, knowing the remaining treasure would quite likely remain safe in our absence, since the place was secured by such powerful wards. With our magic, we returned to the tower where Dolmord and Liamae were waiting for us. Using magic to enable Liamae to fly (as she was not under the enchantment of Wind Walk), we all left the tower and flew to a secluded location in the jungle, away from the Wreck’s anti-teleportation magic. From there, we teleported back to the Sea Wyvern, to join our allies in an epic naval battle…

Hammer 5th, 1377 (continued)

The Wreck will fall

When she was introduced to Dolmord, Liamae told us that she had heard his name mentioned before. A few days ago, in between two sessions of debased torment at the hands of Ziovayne the many-armed demon, while she had been hanging, barely conscious, from chains on the wall, the Cold Captain had come for a visit. He and the demon had talked about the upcoming battle with the fleet that Harliss had put together. Ziovayne had tried to convince the captain to attack us in Scuttlecove instead of on the open sea, but the captain had refused. He had also ignored Ziovayne’s complaints that his plan to crush us at sea would leave the Wreck too vulnerable. The Cold Captain had arrogantly claimed that the Wreck would never fall, in part because it was almost impossible to find, and in part because Demogorgon had told him long ago, in a divination, that the Wreck would only fall the day Dolmord died. Because of this, he had kept my lover alive these past few years, ensuring that the torments of the Death Slaad never actually brought him past the threshold of death, and having him healed regularly by priests.

I smiled, because I knew Dolmord had already died today, for an instant, when the energy of the spell that had brought us here to the Wreck had snuffed out the last flickering flame of his life. Through my divine magic, I had been able to bring his soul right back into his body, and his death had not been in vain: that part of the prophecy was fulfilled. Dolmord’s torment had been the terrible price to pay for what we were about to do: slay Cold Captain Wyther and cause the downfall of the Wreck. Today was the day spoken of in Demogorgon’s prophecy.

Nevertheless, Ulfgar was looking dubiously at Dolmord, holding his axe in both hands. “That’s very good, Belessa, but he was only dead for a moment, according to what you said. What if he needs to be dead for longer than that for the prophecy to work? Maybe we should kill him a second time, just to be sure.”

The rest of the group joined me in replying a firm: “No, Ulfgar!”

Lagaan suggested setting fire to the Wreck, but I pointed out that this place was made of very humid wood, so this would be unlikely to work. Sparkillo also added that the structure was protected by powerful abjuration magic, making this strategy even less likely to be effective.

Death of a legend

Still under the effect of my Wind Walk spell, we headed to the Two-Headed Wretch, where we believed that we would find Cold Captain Wyther. A sinister two-headed figurehead stood at the prow of the ship. On the deck were several large bells that could surely attract some undue attention from the rest of the Wreck’s defenders if they were rung. While the rest of us waited, hidden behind the tree trunk, Lagaan turned invisible and disabled the bells by removing their strikers. As he did so, I looked around for magic, and saw that indeed, the place was protected by some strong abjuration.

I cast a Silence spell to help us enter the ship unnoticed. Lagaan examined the trap door, and once he announced it was clear through our mental link, we went down inside the ship. We found ourselves in a room with a table and several chairs. On the table were some nautical plans of the battle that was currently going on between Harliss’s ships and the Crimson Fleet. We also found some scrolls with Sending spells, which had likely been placed there to enable the Cold Captain to communicate with his troops during the battle.

We looked at the maps for a minute or two, trying to get some idea of our enemies’ strategy. Lagaan in particular got a good grasp of it in that short amount of time, and explained its more subtle points to us. We then decided to warn our allies about this. Sparkillo took the scrolls and floated back on deck, to be out of range of the magical silence. He then communicated with Harliss and informed her of what our enemies were planning.

When he flew back down, he told us mentally that Harliss was still alive, but that the fight was not going too well. Our allies were badly outnumbered, and would need every break they could get – hearing about the Crimson Pirates’ strategy would surely go a long way. Harliss had mentioned in particular that a powerful mage among the Crimson Fleet was causing a lot of damage. We assumed that this was the one we’d heard about: Zaliax Carvanxi. The only good thing about that was that it meant we wouldn’t have to face him here in the Wreck.

There were two doors leading out of the room. One was a huge vault door that was protected by a powerful trap of necromantic magic and the most complex lock Lagaan had ever seen. We guessed it led to the vault containing all of the Crimson Fleet’s treasure.

After I left my “silenced” string on the deck above, we tried the other door, which opened into Cold Captain Wyther’s luxurious chamber. We found the dreaded master of the Crimson Fleet there. He was as impressive as the legends had led us to believe: extremely tall and muscular, he had the wings and horns of a half-demon. He stood bare-chested and wielded a large bastard sword. He seemed ready for battle and scowled at us as the door opened. When he realized that his inner sanctum had been breached by invaders, he let out a few obscenities fouler even than what we normally hear from Harliss, then he licked his blade, cutting his tongue and grinning evilly as blood flowed down his chin.

“Dolmord died, by the way,” said Lagaan in a matter-of-fact tone.

“So will you!” growled the captain.

And then, the fight began!

Lagaan shot a few arrows at Cold Captain Wyther. They lodged themselves inside his chest, but the powerful man stoically broke their shafts with his blade. The demonic captain then charged Raguhl, who stood in the doorway. His bloody sword sliced through the lizardman’s chest, almost killing him instantly. It had been a tremendous blow, one that would have killed pretty much any mortal except Raguhl or Ulfgar. Somehow, Raguhl survived it and entered a state of terrible rage, fighting back against the captain with the help of Ulfgar.

Sparkillo tried to cast a Dimensional Anchor on the Cold Captain, but missed. Meanwhile, I used my magic to completely restore Raguhl’s body with a Heal spell.

The captain struck Raguhl again a few times, but none of his blows had the impact of his first attack. He was wounded by a few more arrows from Lagaan and a few hits from Ulfgar’s axe, but it was Raguhl who struck the deadliest blows, finally cutting off the captain’s head.

The ship shook for a few moments as its master was slain…

We could scarcely believe it was over already… it had gone so fast, in just a few moments, we had destroyed the master of the Crimson Fleet… Our true enemy was Vanthus, but still, we had achieved a tremendous victory by killing Cold Captain Wyther, the scourge of the southern seas.

I cast a Gentle Repose spell on the captain’s head, and we placed it in our “decapitation chest” which contained the heads of a number of our prior enemies as well. The chest was kept in my portable hole, where we also put the captain’s powerfully magical and valuable possessions.

We took some time to search the cabin, where we found many more items of value, such as magical poisoned daggers hidden in the bed’s headboard, bottles of excellent wine and expensive clothes. We also found a scroll on which was written a strange series of spells:

“Fear
Rage
Crushing Despair
Crushing Despair
Rage
Fear
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter”

Damsel in distress

Once again, we manage to elude the guards and moved in gaseous form to the deck of the Anger. Lagaan regained his solid form, which now looked like a Crimson Pirate thanks to his hat of disguise. He opened the trap door leading into the ship and saw four Lemorian Captains playing cards downstairs. His offer to play cards with them was most rudely rebuffed: this was a place for the fleet’s captains, and a low-ranking human grunt like what he appeared to be wasn’t welcome there. Lagaan complied and shut the trap door.

Unfortunately for the four captains, their card game was rudely interrupted only a few moments later by the trap door opening again; by Lagaan shooting arrows at them; and by Ulfgar and Raguhl jumping down with their weapons drawn… all in the most complete magical silence, once again, to try and avoid alerting the rest of the base.

We had heard much about these Lemorians, powerful pirates who had undergone a terrible transformation in Gaping Maw, transcending their frail human nature. Vanthus had become a Lemorian, and had proven to be a powerful adversary. However, these four were quite unimpressive. They failed to cause any serious wounds to our warriors, and three of them were slain in the blink of an eye. The fourth tried to flee down a corridor leading to the back of the ship, but he was impaled simultaneously by Lagaan’s rapier and Raguhl’s greatsword. His corpse fell to the ground in a spectacular shower of blood and gore, all in total silence of course.

Raguhl was in a rather foul mood by then, and he tends to be a creature who lets out his anger in more spectacular ways than most people. Two of the doors in the hallway were reduced to splinters by his furious blows, and beyond the second one, we found a bedroom where a man dressed in a bathrobe was groping a nasty tattooed b!+#& dressed in leather – surely the “Norah” we had heard about before.

Beyond the two love birds, tied up by chains attached to her wrists, was a naked woman who had clearly been abused in a most violent, sadistic and perverted way. Clearly, those two sick freaks had made the poor woman’s existence a living hell for the past two weeks. That woman, of course, was Liamae. As we had done back in Lavinia’s manor when she had been harassed by Bullywugs, we were once again rescuing a naked and utterly humiliated Liamae from monstrous tormentors who had discovered the only thing that such a dumb b+~$+ was really useful for.

Our two warriors charged into the room. Norah fought rather well, but she wasn’t even close to being a match for Ulfgar and Raguhl, and parts of her body soon found themselves flopping to the ground in a rather messy way as she was hacked to pieces.

The innocuous-looking man was, as Liamae had tried to warn us in a roundabout way, more dangerous than he looked. That’s because he wasn’t a man at all: he soon turned into a big snake-like thing with two baboon heads (a common theme among Demogorgon’s minions, it seems), and twelve arms, each wielding a wicked scimitar. This demon was quite powerful, resisting some of Sparkillo’s spells and shrugging off most of the damage from Lagaan’s arrows. He also caused many wounds to Ulfgar, a feat that few of our enemies have been able to perform since the dwarf is nowadays clad in such a powerful armor. But eventually, the fiend was slain, as is often the case, by a simple Magic Missile spell cast by our wizard.

“SPARKILLO!!!” exclaimed the elf in his usual cheerful tone.

He seemed oblivious to the murderous glare that Ulfgar turned his way. The dwarf was furious that yet again, Sparkie had stolen the glory of victory from him. I believe he felt that Sparkillo had insulted his honor as a fighter and as a gladiator of Zelkarune’s Horns by using this cheap tactic. I sometimes wonder if perhaps one day the dwarf will seek revenge against him…

Victory over the demon Ziovayne had come with a price: some of the wounds Ulfgar had suffered were more badly infected than anything I’d ever witnessed before. I told him my fears: that such vile wounds could only be cured by a particular sort of healing magic, one I have heard is, alas, only available in the hallowed temples of the zealous gods of light. What’s more, Ulfgar, Raguhl and Lagaan had some of their spiritual energy drained by the demon, and that, also could only be cured by the so-called ‘good’ gods. Finding such healing will be difficult in a place like this. Perhaps their only hope is the priest of the Protectorate. Or perhaps Liamae, once she has recovered from her ordeal of the past few weeks.

Of course, once the fight was over, Lagaan hurried to free his beloved, chivalrously wanting to come to her rescue even now that she was such a bruised mess of ‘damaged goods’. The hapless girl had lost consciousness from the mistreatment she had been subjected to; but I was merciful and spent some of my precious healing energy to bring her back to her senses. She had been so thoroughly beaten that she was drained of all of her magical energy and could not even heal herself further. She sobbed bitterly in Lagaan’s arms, and when her tear-filled eyes met mine, I saw that my victorious smile drove the final nail in the coffin holding the remains of her self-esteem. The message was clear: I was the heroine here, and she was just a toy condemned to be captured and used by our enemies in the most demeaning ways.

Lagaan questioned her about her captivity, but of course, she wasn’t willing to reveal the sordid details in my presence. I left them alone and went to search the rest of the ship with the other members of Trouble. In one room, we found many maps and scrolls detailing the activities of the Crimson Pirates. We found information about the handling of the Shadow Pearls, and indeed, they had been sent to dozens of cities throughout the world of Faerun, including Sasserine.

Another room seemed to be some sort of shrine to Demogorgon: it contained a scrimshaw idol of the demon lord, which held a mysterious iron sphere with its tentacles. We also looted the corpses of our enemies and took the platinum pieces that they had been using for their card game. Finally, we cut off both of the heads of the baboon-demon and placed them in a chest within the portable hole, for an eventual interrogation in the future.

Liamae was, obviously, in no shape to accompany us, so Sparkillo used his magic to enable her to fly under the cover of invisibility. We then escorted her back to the tower at the entrance of the Wreck, where we placed her in Dolmord’s protection.

Lavinia’s message

Sparkillo decided to use a scroll of Sending to contact Lavinia and try to get an idea of her location. He frowned upon receiving her reply, and passed it on to us in a tense voice: “I believe I am somewhere in the Abyss, prisoner of Vanthus, after going back to Sasserine. Something’s afoot with Vanthus, don’t see him much…”

Our next destination was the small ship that now served as a house for Vanthus. We had little hope of finding him there, or anywhere in the Wreck for that matter, as we now guessed he was in the Abyss along with Lavinia. Indeed, the house was empty, and we entered it easily and without being detected by the guards in the central watch tower. We searched the place thoroughly, but found only one item of some interest. It was a small piece of parchment on which someone – almost surely Lavinia – had scratched a message with their nails:

“Vanthus lives. Back from death. He’s taken control of the fleet and wants to make me into one of them. To take me to Demogorgon’s realm wher”

It ended like that. Poor little Lavinia had likely gotten interrupted in her writing. Raguhl’s fists shook with impotent anger when he heard the words of his beloved mistress. But unfortunately for him – and for her – it appeared there was nothing we could do for her, at least not today.

Lagaan then asked me to contact Liamae, to try and gain more information on her location as well. For a moment, I considered playing a trick on him and pretending she wasn’t answering, but I saw the anguish in the poor young man’s eyes and I took pity on him. I spent a few minutes performing the complex ritual, and I sent my message to Liamae.

“Hi, b#+@~. We’re in the Wreck. Give me information to help us save your sorry ass.”

Of course, Liamae was in too deep a predicament to reply with any kind of sarcasm, so she responded with:

“Currently below deck on the Anger, in room with two pirates. One she-b%~!$ from hell, one normal-looking man, more to him than meets -.”

Of course, if she had been more strategic in her wording, she could’ve given us a clearer warning (as we later discovered), but in this instance, I found it easy to forgive her, as she was being horribly abused at the time (as we also later discovered). I relayed her message to the others, and we prepared to invade another ship: the Anger was a short distance above the prison ship.

Hammer 5th, 1377 (continued)

Ratline Sid

There were several ships impaled upon those three great trees, and as we observed them, we saw several foul enemies, not only Crimson Pirates, but also harpies and Yuan-Ti. We carefully moved in gaseous form to remain hidden behind the hull of Fortune, the prison ship. Then, Sparkillo regained his solid form and opened a magical hole into the ship with his cursed axe. We all entered into a dark storage room, where we regained our solidity as Sparkillo closed the gap behind us.

We quietly made our way into the next room, which contained several cells. To our right, steps led up to the deck where the Retriever stood guard. We did not make a sound, for I had shielded us with a Silence spell: we wanted to avoid alerting the entire Wreck with the sounds of battle. But no battle awaited us in this first ship, for there were no guards downstairs, and only one cell was occupied by a poor sod that had been beaten almost to death. His body was covered in bruises and his jaw was unhinged. As we examined him, we easily noticed that he was something more than human: dark wings hung from his back, marking him as a Lemorian, a half-demon just like what Vanthus had been in the final stage of his life.

We took pity on this unfortunate wretch and I healed him, allowing him the use of his jaw again. We had reasoned that he would be willing to aid us against his former allies, since they had treated him so badly. Fortunately, that is indeed what happened. Raguhl took hold of the piece of string upon which I had cast the Silence spell and stepped away so the rest of us could discuss with the Lemorian. His name was Ratline Sid, and he had once been a captain in the Crimson Fleet. In the recent past, after Vanthus had returned in great power with his new status of Death Knight, a few of the fleet’s captains, including Sid, had tried to manipulate Vanthus and Cold Captain Wyther into fighting each other, hoping they would weaken each other so much that the leadership of the fleet would become up for grabs in the mayhem.

But as could be expected, Vanthus became aware of these shenanigans and fought back harshly against the rebellious captains. Some were killed, some fled, and poor Sid was captured, tortured, interrogated, and finally placed in this cell to rot. He seethed with anger toward Vanthus, and confirmed what we already knew, that Vanthus hated us greatly. It was nice to hear that: it made us feel special.

Sid was quite helpful in answering our questions. We learned that Liamae had spent some time in a nearby cell, but had been adopted as a sex toy by a female captain called Bilgerut Norah, who had come by regularly to take her to her cabin for a few days at a time. Lagaan searched her cell and indeed found signs of her recent captivity. From what Sid told us, Liamae had been in a sorry shape every time she had been returned here from a long session with Norah. This brought a smile to my face.

As for Lavinia, apparently, Vanthus kept her on a leash at his side. Our arch-nemesis had taken residence in a small ship hanging higher in the trees, which had apparently previously belonged to a powerful mage working for the Crimson Pirates, a summoner named Zaliax Carvanxi.

When asked about the Shadow Pearls, Sid informed us that they had been scattered to the four corners of Faerun. He himself had delivered one to some shady people in Baldur’s Gate. Surprisingly, he seemed completely unaware of the danger these pearls represented. Could it be that the bulk of the Crimson Pirates were being manipulated into spreading the pearls across the world? All of this time, we had assumed they had been in the know… But was this merely a demented scheme hatched by Demogorgon and only shared with a few of his most trusted minions? Could we, Trouble, know much more about what was really going on than the Crimson Pirates themselves?

We informed Sid of the danger these pearls represented – that each one could destroy a city, though we did not elaborate as to the why or how.

We also learned a bit more about Cold Captain Wyther, who was likely still in the Wreck despite the naval battle being fought in the nearby waters. He was a legend among pirates, for he had been the first Lemorian; he had been turned into this half-demon, half-man hybrid by Demogorgon himself. Several demons lurking in the Wreck were tied to him: the Retriever upstairs, a monstrous beast in a nearby warehouse that everyone avoided, and Ziovayne, a strange demon with two baboon heads, a snake’s body, and many arms.

As pleasant as it was to talk with Sid, we were on an urgent mission and had to move on. We quickly discussed his fate. Ulfgar, that murderous psychopath, insisted on killing him, but the rest of us opposed that idea. Sid had helped us, and could prove to be a useful source of aid against the Crimson Pirates. We decided to let him go.

Hammer 5th, 1377

Gateway of the mind

I left my ship in the capable hands of Harliss this morning. Along with her, Brissa, Zan and Tyria will be leading the Sea Wyvern’s crew. Our little bard friend won’t come with us on this daring adventure, but she will surely provide some much needed help with her arrows and potent magic to the crew of the vessel… I do not know if it will make a difference, if it means that the Sea Wyvern will survive the attack… But before leaving, I prayed to Umberlee so that my ship and my friends might be blessed by her overwhelming power. They will surely need it…

Sparkillo brought us back to the Rusty Shunt yet again. There, we met a strange hooded elf who greeted Lagaan. I thought at first that this was his father, but I later learned it was not the case. We held hands, and he teleported us to a dark underground crypt with a stone table and a beautiful tapestry. We spoke only briefly, but I got the distinct impression that this elf was under some sort of magical control. I mentioned it to Lagaan via our mental link, but he brushed my concern aside.

“Is this really your father?” asked Raguhl.

“No, my father is controlling him,” replied the rogue. “It’s fine.”

“So where is your actual father?” I asked Lagaan in a very sceptical mental tone.

“He’s… err… taking a bath at the moment. Listen, it’s not important. Just trust me, guys, all right?”

I studied Lagaan in silence for a few moments. The situation was truly strange, and quite propitious for a devious trap of some kind. Yet Lagaan seemed quite sure of himself, and not under the effect of a domination spell, like the elf was. Since we didn’t have time to argue or to be too paranoid, I agreed to go along with the plan.

“If you’re ready, then we must all hold hands,” said the elf. Once we’d done so, he looked straight into my eyes. “Priestess, think about the gateway… Think about this man who will let us enter the Wreck… Focus your mind on him.”

The elf gestured as though he were casting a spell, but I could clearly see it was only an act. Surely, the actual spell was being cast by someone else. Was it Lagaan’s father? Where the hell was he and why was he putting on such a show?

I thought about Dolmord, that strong, handsome, protective man, the father of my child, the one who had allowed me to be brought back to life… Dolmord, I owed him so much… He had suffered so much, for so long… How I yearned to set him free…

I caught glimpses of a room with walls of stone… Blood, splattered on the walls… Pain… Darkness… A rasping voice, coming from the right… Pain… Always the pain… The bodies… the others… hanging, hanging limp… Dead… All dead… Why wasn’t I dead? Why wouldn’t they just let me die?

I was in Dolmord’s mind… I saw through his eyes… ached through his flesh.

An impossibility…

A joining of the minds.

Belessa… Is that really you?...

“You are doing well, priestess,” said the elf. “You are all doing well, except the dwarf, whose chaotic thoughts are noisier than his armor and smell fouler than his ale breath!”

“Sorry,” grumbled Ulfgar.

In the blink of an eye, I was staring at a macabre chamber littered with bones, filled with the stench of rancid meat. Hooked chains dangled from the ceiling. Mutilated bodies hung from some of them. My body was afire with the pain of a thousand cuts… Just as it had been every single day since I had been captured by the Crimson Pirates, what felt like so long ago… This never-ending torment, only so rarely and so briefly interrupted by the visions of my love, my beautiful Belessa, pale of skin, dark of hair, the mother of my child, bringer of hope… she said she would come to set me free…

“Awake again?” hissed a sinister, inhuman voice to my side. “Twice in a day, that’s a lot for you, Dolmord. You know your prayers won’t be answered. The day hasn’t come yet when you will die… hmmm… oh, no… hmmm….”

I hung from those chains… They bit deep into my wrists… I felt numb, and yet I could feel every ache, every cut, every bruise. My body was a vast throbbing expanse of tormented flesh… When would it end?... When would I be set free?…

And suddenly, the pain was gone. I didn’t feel the world through Dolmord’s body anymore. I was back in my own body… But my body, along with the rest of Trouble, as well as the elf, now stood in the torture room at Dolmord’s side. I saw my poor lover hanging limp from the chains wrapped around his wrists. His form was covered in scars, yet it was still whole… He was not beyond the salvation of my healing magic. But as our eyes met, the glimmer of life left his gaze. The magic of the ritual had drained so much from his spirit, to yank us into this room, that it had snuffed the tiny flame that remained of his life. Dolmord was dead, but still within my grasp to heal. I just had to be fast.

I was only vaguely aware of the humanoid frog-headed creature with grey skin that stood next to Dolmord. This was the monster that had tormented him like this. Under any other circumstances, I would have blasted it into oblivion with my most destructive spell, but alas, I had to focus all of my will on weaving healing energy into Dolmord’s body to restore it and to bring back his recently departed soul.

The frog-creature, which was a horrible Death Slaad, apparently gave a sickly smile at Raguhl and nearly obliterated him with a single spell. The lizardman reeled back from the blast of energy. Lagaan attacked the Slaad. The elf who had brought us here shook his head in surprise. It seemed the enchantment that Arafern had laid on him was now gone. With a snarl, he drew his scimitar and attacked Lagaan, but failed to cause any serious wound before being slaughtered by Ulfgar. Lagaan would later explain to us that he had just been an evil denizen of Scuttlecove under the mental control of his father, a control that had been broken upon entering the Wreck.

A short and brutal battle followed. Sparkillo failed to disintegrate our enemy, but he was able to break his mind with a Feeblemind spell. The Slaad turned into nothing more than a ravenous beast, but it was still dangerous with its physical attacks. It badly harmed Lagaan, but was soon hacked to pieces by Ulfgar’s axe. Its death had been far too swift, I fear, but life is often unfair like this.

Together at last!

So powerful was my magic that within moments, I had not only brought Dolmord back from beyond death, but I had healed most of his wounds. He was still dazed from the years of torture, but he was physically and mentally whole again. He stood tall just as I remembered him, but he was much thinner than before, and a dark beard now covered his chin.

“Belessa…” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Dolmord, my dear, loyal bodyguard,” I said, making it clear to him that I was hiding our true link from the others. “How happy I am to see you again. You are free now, I will never let them hurt you again!”

We both had tears in our eyes, and we hugged each other. It was glorious, after having been separated for so long, after both suffering so much… It was a miracle that we were together again!

There was so much I wanted to tell him. I wish the others had not been there, I wanted to kiss him so badly! But there was no time. We were all still in great danger. We had to keep moving. I quickly introduced my companions and explained what we were doing here, and that we still had to save Lavinia and Liamae. We also had to kill Vanthus.

Dolmord confirmed that Vanthus had come to talk to him, but could not remember what he had said. It seemed to be lost in a haze of pain. He had not seen the two women, but had an idea where they were kept.

Indeed, we were not in the prisons. This torture room was in a tower situated near the entrance to the Wreck. There were windows in the walls, and we saw on one side the open ocean where the great naval battle between our forces and the Crimson Pirates was starting. On that side, the entrance to the Crimson Pirate base was blocked by a huge tangle of debris. According to Sparkillo, the Death Slaad had likely been able to use its magic to clear the way when ships needed to enter or exit the cove.

On the other side of the room, we saw through the windows the tangled mess that was the Crimson Pirate Base. It was a chaotic jumble of shipwrecks, trees, rope bridges and docks. It seemed mostly deserted, so it appeared that Harliss’s plan had worked: the Crimson Fleet had left its base mostly unguarded. Of course, here and there, we could still see a few pirates, and we were sure that vile demons lurked in the shadows of the docks and ships. Dolmord also warned us about the emaciated bodies we saw here and there, hanging in rusted iron cages. They had been told by the Crimson Pirates to yell in case they saw us, fed with the false promise of freedom if they helped in our capture.

At the center of the base was a trio of immense trees upon which were impaled several large pirate ships. It was a disturbing sight, taken straight from the nightmares of a mad old seadog. Dolmord pointed at the largest ship, the one at the bottom, and said he had been kept prisoner there before. He believed that Lavinia and Liamae could be found there. He wasn’t sure why he had been taken from there and brought here instead, but only knew that his tormentor, the Death Slaad Velzigarus, had also been some kind of prisoner of the Crimson Pirates. The powerful creature, which should’ve been a lord among its kind in Limbo, wore only dirty rags. Yet we had no time to question its corpse to learn what it was doing here, why it was a prisoner of the Crimson Pirates, and why it had smiled at Raguhl before trying to destroy him.

Dolmord quickly told me that he had been kept alive for a reason. He had seen countless other prisoners here over the years, but they had all been slain by Velzigarus eventually. None of them had ever endured a tenth of what he had suffered. Yet to keep him alive, he had periodically been visited by priests of Demogorgon who had applied their healing magic to keep his body whole.

Part of my mind screamed that they must’ve had some wicked reason for doing this, that this was a trap, that they were using Dolmord as bait, but I ignored it. I was just too happy that he was safe and sound… I would never let them take him away from me again.

While I was talking to my lover, the men discussed where to go next. A watchtower stood at the center of the base, and seemed like an obvious target to attack, but the prison ship was our real goal.

“I say we go to the prison right away,” said Raguhl.

“Hmm, I don’t think so,” said Ulfgar. “It would be better to neutralize the tower.”

“But in the prison, we can find Lavinia and Liamae,” said the lizardman.

“And maybe some loot, too,” added Lagaan.

“And Vanthus!” said Sparkillo, shaking his dainty fist in the air.

“I’m still not sure…” said Ulfgar.

“Come on, man!” said Raguhl. “Women, loot and bad guys! What more do you want?”

And so we decided to go straight for the prison. Dolmord was in no condition to come with us. Even though I had closed his wounds, I feared he would not be able to keep up with Trouble, for we were bound to face foes beyond his level of power. He was a strong fighter, but my allies and I had evolved beyond the reach of most mortals: we were far more powerful than Dolmord and I had been when we had lived in Starmantle. What’s more, he assured us that nobody ever came to this tower: he would be safe waiting here. Nevertheless, I opened my portable hole and we found a good magical armor and sword for him in there… At least, he would have a chance to defend himself if he did get attacked, but I clung to the hope that it wouldn’t come to that.

To allow us to reach the prison in stealth, I cast a Wind Walk spell on all of us. Normally, Sparkillo could’ve teleported us there directly, but Lagaan’s father, whoever and wherever he was, had warned us that using teleportation magic within the Wreck was extremely difficult even for someone like Sparkie.

I regretfully left Dolmord behind and followed my companions, in gaseous form, toward the big impaled ship. We circled around it and saw that it was hermetically closed except in one place: a stairway leading down from the main deck. But it was guarded by two pirates and a monstrous Retriever… we would have to get past those somehow…

Hammer 4th, 1377

Another me

This morning, Sparkillo brought us back to the Rusty Shunt for our breakfast. As we had hoped, we met Lagaan over there. He looked at once excited and disturbed, so I wasn’t sure how his meeting with his father had gone. He answered some of our many questions, but it was clear that he was only revealing part of the truth.

His father, Arafern, knew much about the Crimson Pirates. He had powerful abilities of mind control, and had at some point captured one of the captains of the Crimson Fleet, and had thereby gained much information about the Wreck. This included knowledge about a special ritual that enabled people to teleport inside the Wreck, a feat that was impossible with ordinary magic. The only catch was that one of the people in the circle of teleportation had to know a willing male subject in the Wreck.

“But we only know Lavinia and Liamae inside,” said Lagaan, “except for Vanthus, who I’m sure is not willing.”

“Well, perhaps he’d be willing to let us teleport to him if he knew he’d get to fight us,” offered Ulfgar.

“I’m not sure,” replied Lagaan. “But we could also try to capture a Bar-Lgura and charm it instead.”

“I believe I have a simpler solution,” I said while the others were contemplating alternatives. “I know a willing man in the Wreck.”

The others all looked at me with puzzled expressions. “You do?”

I had never told them about my captive lover, but I felt it was now the time to reveal his existence.

“Yes. Before we met, back when I lived in Calimshan, I had a bodyguard, a strong warrior named Dolmord, who was captured by the Crimson Pirates. For a long time, I thought he was dead, but in recent months, I learned through divination that he was in fact still alive, but kept prisoner by the Crimson Pirates, in what I assume to be the Wreck. If I am right, we could use his spirit to enter the base…”

“Would it work?” asked Raguhl.

“I’m not sure… But I think so,” replied Lagaan.

“We could ask your father,” I said. “When do we get to meet him?”

Lagaan’s expression suddenly turned darker. “Err… I don’t know. He’s a very private person.”

“Aw, come on!”

“I don’t think so. He’s very cautious. And he warned me that we should all be more careful as well: it seems we’ve trusted Tyralandi too much.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, when we were with her the other day, apparently, she kept some of our hair or something and made clones of you and I…”

The other members of the group guffawed at this ludicrous turn of events, but I felt my heart clench with dread and anger. I felt so betrayed… That b&#~@! How dared she!!!

My mind raced with the possibilities. Would my clone have the same abilities as I did? Would Umberlee grant her access to her divine magic? And what about her free will? Was she Tyralandi’s slave, or would she act like me, like the original?

There were too many variables to the equation, too many possibilities and too little time to consider them. We had to focus on the upcoming Crimson Pirate attack. But I felt certain that some day, sooner or later, this would come back and bite us in the arse.

Of course, to Raguhl, Ulfgar and Sparkillo, this was just a grand joke. They said that Tyralandi had wanted to keep copies of Lagaan and I in her bedroom for nightly enjoyment; they also suggested that we should capture the clones and turn them in, back in Sasserine, to claim the reward on our heads.

Farewell to the Wyvern?

Later in the morning, we returned to the Monastery of Dire Hunger to give the Master his book. He seemed most pleased and removed the quivering palm from Lagaan. He also assured us that some of his monks would join our naval assault on the Wreck.

The rest of the day was spent in preparations for the attack. Sparkie wasted much of his precious magic to bring the remaining slaves we saved from the Seventh Coil back to Sasserine. I sailed the Sea Wyvern to the bay outside Scuttlecove, where we met many ships of our allies. There is a palpable mixture of excitement and dread on board, for we know that tomorrow, we will sail against what is surely one of the strongest fleets in Faerun. It is clear that many of our allies will die. Perhaps all of them. In a way, I wish I could take part in this heroic battle, but I will be needed elsewhere, in a place that will possibly be even more dangerous than here on the high seas.

Before going to bed, I took one last walk around my beautiful Sea Wyvern, knowing full well that she might get sunk tomorrow… Whatever happens to her, and to me, we will surely be together again one day in Umberlee’s domain deep below the surface…

Hammer 3rd, 1377 (continued)

Father and son

I woke up early in the evening and went on deck, noticing that there was a lot of activity on board. My companions were giggling like silly little boys as they played with Raguhl’s decanter of endless water. Tyria was with them; she had somehow made her way to the Sea Wyvern, who knows how... It seems she has not left us as seemed to be the case earlier; she is going to stick around after all.

I went to see Brissa, who had done a good job of keeping the crew in line while I was gone. She told me that Harliss wanted to meet us at the Rusty Shunt tonight. She also talked to me about Moretta, but I really didn’t give a damn at this point. My former acolyte wanted me to perform an atonement for her, but I informed Brissa that Umberlee had not granted me the power to perform such a ritual. Moretta would have to go find another priest for that.

I really didn’t feel like socializing tonight, but the others convinced me to go to the Rusty Shunt with them to meet Harliss and for Lagaan to finally meet his father. He also wanted to return to the palace of the Ur-Priests to scry on Vanthus and the Slaad that had stolen his soul. While I understood his concern and agreed that further scrying might be a good idea, I reminded him that I had used a lot of my most potent spells already today; it seemed that another excursion within the dangerous ruins would be ill-advised.

Sparkillo’s magic brought us back to the Rusty Shunt. It was quite crowded, as it would’ve been on a normal night, but there was a lot of tension in the air due to the attack of the killer swarms in the morning morning. Many people wore bandages; they were at once grim and agitated. It turned out that the first victims of the locusts had started turning into vampire spawns, so all the others had been put to the torch to prevent an outbreak of undead. I was also convinced that some of the locals must have taken advantage of the chaotic situation to get rid of some bothersome rivals, using the excuse of cleansing the town of an undead infestation.

The hero of the day was Kedward Bone, who had slain the giant lizard-slug-thing with the help of his devils. Many of the tavern’s patrons praised him, and some even said he should be elected mayor. Good for him.

Nobody seemed to know that we had, very indirectly, been responsible for today’s attacks, and instead they blamed the Crimson Pirates, who had been absent from Scuttlecove for some time now, most likely too busy with their plans for world domination and/or destruction. I of course used this to our advantage and fuelled those rumors to turn even more of the locals against the Crimson Pirates.

Harliss found us among the crowd and brought us to a table in a corner for a more private discussion. She and her allies at Red Foam Whaling had been attacked by the swarms, but they had all survived nevertheless. She told us that she had contacted enough people in Scuttlecove to mount a convincing “decoy attack”, meaning to have a bunch of ships sailing to the general area of the Wreck, hoping to draw out the major part of the Crimson Fleet. We hoped that our enemies would fall for this crude trap despite their cunning, due to the fact that they wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of destroying lesser pirates aboard lesser ships on the sea, where they have always dominated. Meanwhile, and hopefully, before our allies all got butchered, we would infiltrate the Wreck, kill the remaining Crimson Pirates who stood in our way, which hopefully included Vanthus, save the damsels in distress Lavinia and Liamae, as well as Dolmord, and somehow make our way back to safety.

There was just one tiny flaw in this bold plan: we had no idea how to infiltrate the Wreck. Tyralandi had promised us this information, but we hadn’t had any contact with her since the night when we had entertained her.

Lars then came by and spoke to Lagaan, no doubt about his father. The rogue excused himself and disappeared. Clearly, he wanted to spy on his father under the cover of invisibility before making contact.

We spent a few more hours at the Rusty Shunt. Sparkillo, Raguhl and I discussed some strategies for the upcoming naval battle with Harliss, while Ulfgar downed a large amount of beer as usual. After a few hours, we still had no word from Lagaan, and since we were getting tired, we decided to return to the Sea Wyvern without him.

Hammer 3rd, 1377

Stubby’s rescue

We were not disturbed by monsters or even by nightmares during the night, so we woke up the next day fully rested. As we ate our daily Heroes’ Feast, though, Raguhl informed us that he had taken the liberty of promising Wart that we would find and rescue his captive dwarven companion. I sighed heavily, for I had been looking forward to leaving this dreary place.

Another small surprise was that Sparkillo’s cursed axe had magically reappeared at his belt. A larger one was that, once we exited the portal leading to the mansion, we realized that the door we’d closed the previous day to prevent the swarm from passing through had been destroyed. We returned to the lair of the big lizard-slug and found it gone. The vermin swarms were gone too. The slimy tracks indicated that the enormous abomination had left in the direction we’d come from: the chamber of many doors…

Next, we spent some time looking for the captive dwarf (who I believe was called Stubby). Sparkillo used his magic again to locate his eyepatch, and we started moving in that direction. We triggered a painful cloud of fire, which we escaped thanks to a Dimension Door from Sparkillo. He in fact brought us right next to the location of the prismatic bubble holding Stubby captive. That would’ve been a great thing, had it not been for the massive swarms of locusts that hovered within the room.

Sparkillo blasted the entire room with a deadly Horrid Wilting spell, which caused us all great pain, and didn’t even manage to destroy the swarms… The insects swirled around us furiously, and drained some of Ulfgar’s life energy. While my companions were busy battling the vermin, I quickly used a Wall of Ice spell to create a frozen hemisphere to shelter us temporarily. I protected us all from negative energy, and then we broke the wall and finished off the swarms. It was a long and painful process, but eventually, we dispelled the vermin. Sparkillo used eight more spells to break the prismatic bubble, thereby releasing Stubby.

Alas, within the sphere, there were yet even more vermin, which we also had to kill. Once we were done with that, we realized that our bad luck did not end there: it turned out that Stubby was in fact quite, quite dead.

“I’m sorry, Wart,” said Raguhl, seeing that the big warrior looked quite morose. “We did all we could.”

“I can resurrect your companion for the standard fee if you wish it,” I told Wart.

“What about their cleric, we could look for him too,” offered Lagaan.

“NO!” I said firmly. “No, categorically no. We’ve spent more than enough time here already. We’ve found the holy book, we’ve found the information about your father, we’ve rescued Tyria, and we’ve even recovered what’s left of Stubby. There’s no way we’re going to roam aimlessly in this vermin-infested place looking for a cleric who might or might not still be alive. No way. He’s on his own.”

Lagaan looked around at the rest of the group, but none of the others, not even Wart himself, looked too keen on sticking around.

The big mess

Sparkillo tried to teleport us directly to the main room of the Rusty Shunt. He missed his mark a little bit. We all appeared in the (suddenly very crowded) latrines.

“Idiot…” I snarled as I stalked out of the tiny room.

I stopped suddenly. Something was wrong.

The main room of the inn was completely empty. Tables were overturned, beer stains covered the floor. Clearly, this place had been evacuated recently, in a hurry. We heard screams and the sounds of battle coming from outside. For a moment, we all thought the same thing: the Crimson Pirates were attacking Scuttlecove!

We hurried toward the windows and saw what was actually going on. The entire town was being attacked by… countless swarms of locusts…

“What…” began Raguhl.

“The…” continued Ulfgar.

“Hell…?” finished Lagaan.

“Is it just me or do those insects look kind of familiar?” asked Wart.

“Of course they do, you nitwit!” I hissed.

“Hmm,” said Lagaan with a perplexed expression. “Maybe we shouldn’t have told that big slug-lizard-thing how to open the door, after all.”

“But… I don’t get it…” said Ulfgar. “How come it only left now? Couldn’t it open the door by itself?”

Lagaan shrugged.

“Well, come on!” said Raguhl with his usual zeal. “Let’s go help defend the city!”

And so the men hurried outside the inn, eager to fight the swarm while they were still protected from its energy-draining effect by my magic. I followed them much more slowly. I suddenly felt very depressed. Obviously, it was because of us that the town was being threatened by this cataclysm. Perhaps the lizard-slug-thing had left because it had guessed we had destroyed the seven-headed juggernaut. Perhaps it had remained in its lair beyond portal C19 all those years, patiently biding its time and spewing locust swarms until the day a group of adventurers would kill the construct and enable it to leave.

We had gone into the palace with the best of intentions: we wanted to help Lagaan find out about his father and to rescue Tyria. Someone once said that no good deed ever goes unpunished. That person was clearly very wise. Much wiser than me, that’s for certain, because I keep falling into the same trap over and over again.

I watched numbly as the local populace fought the swarm with whatever weapons they had at their disposals. They used torches, mostly. It seemed that the town would survive the onslaught, but with a heavy cost in human lives. Corpses littered the streets, and pale, shrivelled people who were still alive, crawling in the mud, feebly raised their arms and begged me for healing. I felt no desire to help them. What good would come out of it? Clearly, every time I try to perform a good deed, it turns against me. Besides, the villainous scum of Scuttlecove deserved nobody’s help.

We learned eventually that the devils that serve Kedward Bone had been instrumental in the city’s defense, and that they had slain the big undead lizard itself.

I noticed that Lars Landicaster, the owner of the Rusty Shunt, was on the roof of his establishment, trying to fight off the swarm. I was worried that he would die before giving us the information about Arafern, Lagaan’s father, so I levitated up to him and protected him from death magic as well. The others soon joined us and dispersed the swarms around the inn. Then we helped Lars back to the ground and entered the inn with him.

“Thank you kindly, folks,” he said gruffly. He was covered in sweat and insect bites, and his skin was quite pale. “Oh, it’s a terrible tragedy what befell our lovely town today. Once word comes out of who’s responsible for this, there’s going to be retribution against these curs for sure.”

The rest of the group stared at him blankly, except for Raguhl, who looked miserable and guilty. Wart wisely remained silent. I glared at the innkeeper… I could’ve obliterated him on the spot if I didn’t care so much about Lagaan’s quest for his father. Retribution, huh? Let them come… Anyone who seeks Trouble will find Trouble… And suffer the consequences. They’ll find that we’re considerably more dangerous than a cloud of insects.

When Lagaan asked Lars about Arafern, the innkeeper looked surprised and wary. He instructed our rogue to return that evening to learn more. Since it was only mid-morning, Sparkillo teleported us all (minus Wart and Stubby’s corpse) back to the Sea Wyvern, which was still anchored in a semi-secret bay some distance from town. Thus, they had not been attacked by any locust swarms. Everything appeared to be going well on deck. I headed straight to my cabin, locked the door behind me, and collapsed on the bed. Even though I had not been drained of energy by the locusts, I felt completely depressed. The bizarre and strangely un-rewarding adventure in the Ur-Priests’ palace had drained me of emotions. I felt tears flowing down my temples, and for now, I wanted only to be swallowed up into the black oblivion of sleep…

A promise kept

As it turned out, we were able to avoid combat and convince the two outsiders that it wouldn’t be in their best interest to pick a fight with Trouble. The Deva cancelled his Blade Barrier, and we were able to return to the room of many doors without any bloodshed.

Once we were back in the room of many doors, Sparkillo began the incantation to open the other door we believed might lead to the Vault of Death, but as he did so, we noticed that his cursed axe began glowing strangely. This mysterious weapon, which he had discovered in the ruins of Tomoachan, allowed him to create holes through walls, a potent power, but we knew that along with it came a curse: sometimes, these holes instead became portals to Tanathos, the layer of the Abyss that is ruled by Orcus. Such an occurrence had only happened once before, back when we were in Journey’s End during our first trip to the Isle of Dread. A deadly shadow had emerged from the portal and had attacked Sparkillo, Lagaan and Raguhl. Just before the portal closed, a gigantic being of pure darkness, a dreaded nightwalker, had looked at us and had promised that we would meet again.

It’s not clear what caused the axe to activate this time, whether it was Sparkie’s tampering with the room’s portals, or just some devious side-effect of the omnipresent magic of the Ur-Priests, but once again, a portal to Tanathos opened near us. Beyond it stretched the bleak landscape of black hills upon which roamed the tormented souls of the dead. Stepping through the portal, towering over us, came the nightwalker we’d already seen once before. It made good on its promise of seeing us again. But this time, he proved much less agreeable and attacked us.

There are very few living beings who can boast about having defeated a Nightwalker, one of these terrible undead denizens of the lower planes. But then, there are very few living beings who are as powerful as Trouble. The deadly undead had clearly underestimated us, and paid the price for its arrogance. Surely, it was very powerful. Its mere presence made our hearts clench with fear, but some of us were still shielded from this effect by the morning’s Heroes’ Feast. Only Lagaan and Sparkie stood frozen in place, cowering before our enemy. Raguhl and Ulfgar rushed it and it soon felt the sting of their blades.

The Nightwalker created a miasma of darkness around us that seemed to cause pain to my companions, but I am used to such dark magic and it had no effect on me at all. It blasted us all with a Cone of Cold, and also tried to kill Raguhl with a Finger of Death, but the raging barbarian survived the deadly magic without even flinching. That’s all our enemy had the time to do before being hacked to death by Ulfgar’s frost-imbued axe.

We were still in danger, though, for the portal still gaped open, and through it, we could see many dark shapes approaching toward the material plane. Gaunt and twisted they were, foul skeletons with purple fungus growing inside their torsos. We knew that if they reached the gate, we would be doomed. Sparkillo used his magic to try and dispel the portal, but it was in vain. The thing was incredibly resistant due to some disturbance related to the Ur-Priests’ magic. The elf threw his cursed axe through the portal, but that didn’t help either. Eventually, by focusing as he had rarely done before, Sparkillo was able to disrupt the magic of the portal with one final spell. The dark gate vanished… We were safe!

Once that threat was gone, I healed my own wounds as well as Raguhl’s. I had already healed the nasty frost burns that Sparkillo had suffered during the battle. I approached Ulfgar, whose beard was still covered with shards of ice, but he shoved my hand away, grumbling that he didn’t need any healing magic. I shrugged and turned back toward Sparkillo and Lagaan, who were trying to figure out why the cursed axe had reacted that way. But in the end, they were unable to reach any meaningful conclusion.

The undead collector

We finally opened the portal leading to ‘C19’ and stepped through. It led to an old mausoleum containing many alcoves and coffins in which rested some corpses. Clearly, we had reached the Vault of Death, where Tyria was supposed to be. Sparkillo used a Locate Object spell to discover that she, or at least, her flying carpet, was located several hundred feet from us. We made our way through the dark corridors in that direction. Along the way, we found several massive doors protected by heavy locks and deadly magic. They were adorned with the symbol of Kelemvor, god of death.

Lagaan, despite his best efforts, proved utterly inept in detecting the traps, and narrowly avoided a ray of negative energy when he tried to open the first door. For his safety, we used magic to open doors from that point on, the first with a Babau demon I summoned, and the others with Knock spells from Sparkillo.

At some point, we reached a vast chamber that was filled with swarms of buzzing, flying insects. The vermin hovered in thick clouds around what appeared to be the bloated corpse of a long-dead reptilian monstrosity of enormous size. As we approached, though, we realized that the thing was still animated by a sinister presence; perhaps it was some form of undead. As it turned to face us, we saw that it oozed new swarms of those monstrous insects from various foul orifices. We recognized the parasites as bloodfiend locusts, terrible creatures capable of draining the life energy of victims caught within their swarms. Clearly, we needed to be very careful here.

The monstrous dead slug-lizard spoke in a deep voice: “How did you get here?”

“We used the door,” replied Lagaan in his usual insolent tone.

“How?” rumbled the massive creature.

“Well, it’s got a knob, you see,” continued Ulfgar, who was also feeling quite sarcastic. “You have to turn it, and then, you can get through the door. It’s quite simple, really.”

As soon as that tremendously vital information was revealed, a vast quantity of insects flew right by us in the direction of the exit. We decided not to stick around in this dangerous place and made our way toward the corridor at the far end of the room, since the giant dead lizard didn’t seem to want to stop us. As we walked through the room, we saw that there were many coffins lined along the walls in a sort of macabre exposition. Their lids were transparent, and within, we saw that a great number of undead were trapped.

Only one short, squat coffin appeared empty, and as we passed by it, a dwarf approached us from around a pillar. His hair and beard were quite wild, and of the same grey color as his skin and armor. Only his eyes glowed with a dull red color; he was apparently some form of ghost.

“Hey, you,” he grunted in Ulfgar’s direction. “What’s your name?”

“Ulfgar Dorunn, at your service,” replied our companion.

“Descendent of Dorunn the Great?”

“Mostly…” replied Ulfgar in an uncertain tone.

“I knew Dorunn the Great, your ancestor. I was the one who killed him.”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

“He was weak,” continued the ghost, who was clearly trying to pick a fight. “He was afraid of being underground. What kind of dwarf is afraid of being underground? Pfff! What a sissy!” We all remained politely silent, even though we knew that Ulfgar was also quite nervous underground. “Your ancestor was the heir to the throne of our dwarven kingdom, lad. For killing him, I was banished. But it was unfair! I, Barjack Blackfist, did the kingdom a great honor by killing such an unworthy heir!”

“If you say so,” replied Ulfgar.

The ghost seemed appalled at his restraint. “What’s the matter, man? Don’t you have any balls? Is your beard made of sissy elf hair? Won’t you try and avenge your sire?”

Ulfgar remained silent. He appeared to be thinking about it.

“Well…?” asked Sparkillo through the mental link.

“Friend Ulfgar, I will aid you in avenging your slain ancestor!” pledged Raguhl in his usual heroic tone.

But the ghost Barjack seemed to get impatient because of Ulfgar’s hesitation; he roared at us, changing his shape into a vision of horrific appearance. A few of my companions were shaken by this, but it takes more than that to scare me. I raised my holy symbol and exerted its power on the ghost, forcing it to its incorporeal knees.

“Bow down before the power of the great Umberlee!” I hissed. Then, once it was clear that the ghost was helpless, I motioned for the rest of the group to destroy it. It took quite a beating before dissolving into flimsy shards of ectoplasm, but eventually we got rid of it.

The sphere

After getting past another viciously trapped door, we found a room in which a large, multi-colored magical bubble floated in the air. Sparkillo sensed that Tyria was kept inside. We tried to understand the nature of this strange sphere by using our magic and knowledge, and also by experimenting with a few arrows. Everything seemed to be getting stuck inside the sphere, but couldn’t come out of it.

While Sparkillo was analyzing the sphere with more attention, we heard the sounds of someone approaching. It turned out to be a hulking man in battered armor: he was the fighter of the other group of adventurers we had met previously at the Rusty Shunt. I don’t remember his name with great clarity, so I shall call him Wart in this text. Apparently, the rest of his group had suffered tragic fates within the ruined palace during the last few days. Their wizardess had been turned into an undead; their cleric had vanished mysteriously; and their dwarven rogue had gotten stuck inside a prismatic bubble just like the one that currently kept Tyria captive. Poor Wart seemed so miserable that we agreed to help him get out of the dungeon.

While we were talking, we heard the sounds of a swarm of locusts approaching, so we closed the door to avoid them. Sparkillo ended up figuring out how to break the sphere: it was a matter of casting one spell of each of the eight schools of magic at it. He did so, finishing with a Magic Missile which burst the bubble.

“SPARKILLO!!!” he exclaimed majestically.

Where the bubble had recently hovered, we could now see a tiny woman wearing brightly-colored clothes, sitting on a flying carpet. Her expression was terribly bored, and she seemed to be playing a game of patience on a long scroll that was filled with weeks’ worth of her handwriting.

She blinked in surprise. “Sparkillo? … Raguhl?... Lagaan?... Belessa?... Ulfgar?... Is it really you!?”

We all smiled at her, happy to see that she was still alive.

“Yes, Tyria, we came to save you!” said Raguhl, who gripped the little Halfling in a tight hug. Tyria giggled and kissed his scaly cheek.

“Wow guys it was awful I was stuck in there for soooo long it totally sucked I tried so many thing to get out but nothing worked I tried all my spells but nothing worked I’ve never heard about a bubble like that it’s so bogus I even tried a scroll of teleport and it didn’t work I didn’t know what to do I was soooo bored I almost ran out of room on my scrolls playing tic-tac-toe with myself you have no idea how mind-bogglingly boring this was it felt like an eternity by the way what year are we now anyway it’s all right at least I survived I didn’t need to eat or drink or sleep well sleep a bit but barely because I bought a ring of sustenance like Belessa because you know me I love traveling and I can’t waste too much time sleeping gotta see it all so many places to see and so many things to do and people to meet anyway thanks a lot guys for saving me but I’ve got things to do so thanks a gain you guys rock anyway thanks bye.”

She hastily produced another teleportation parchment from her pack, read it, and vanished in a puff of smoke along with her flying carpet. We all stood dumbfounded for a moment… she had disappeared so quickly.

“What the…” started Ulfgar.

“Well, that was fulfilling,” I said dryly.

“Hmm…” Even Raguhl seemed a bit bitter that she had left us without the slightest regard for our predicament or that of Lavinia. “Well, at least she’s safe.”

I snorted. “Yeah, until the next time we need to go save her sorry ass…”

By that time, Sparkillo and I were quite tired, as we had used almost all of our spells. He summoned a Magnificent Mansion and we all stepped through the portal for some well-deserved rest. Raguhl seemed to bond quickly with Wart, and they shared stories about our adventures, sitting at the huge table in the center of the mystical house. Apparently, the other group had fought mostly stone golems, bound demons, undead and traps. They had not been able to get any rest as they had been beset by nightmares when they went to sleep. Also, the layout of the dungeon had been constantly shifting, so they had gotten hopelessly lost.

The Hall of Artefacts

Beyond the ‘B13’ portal was a room with stairs leading up to a wide balcony. The rest of the group went up the stairs, while I levitated up there using my magical boots. We took one of the two hallways that opened before us; it led to a strange place that seemed suspended in the night sky. We stood on some kind of platform, and from there, we could see three other platforms that looked like repositories of strange artefacts. Doors seemed to lead way from those platforms into other dimensional spaces. Stairs led upward/downward in a square formation, impossibly coming back to the save level after climbing up an entire turn. On our platform was a weird three-dimensional chess game called a planar board. The Halfling-sized figurines turned to watch us enter. We had been warned that this place was filled with cursed artefacts, so we weren’t supposed to touch anything except the book the Dire Hunger Master wanted. I saw Ulfgar hesitate for a moment, gripped by curiosity, but he thankfully decided to use his brain for a change, and did not touch the chess game.

The next “room” was a library, where an invisible creature (whom Sparkillo saw looked like a cat-headed man… perhaps a Rakshasa?) helped us find the tome with the symbol of the skull and pyramid. When we asked him other questions, though, he became extremely rude, complaining that he was bound to this place for eighty-five more years and that his orders were only to help visitors find books. Clearly, he refused to provide any other kind of help. Satisfied that he would spend the next several centuries alone and bitter, we left this odious creature to its misery.

Next, we found ourselves on a platform with four petrified armored men guarding a complex magical cube. We tried restoring one of the men to flesh, but it didn’t work. We understood that the cube was the prison of a powerful being: but we wondered if we should risk releasing it… Since this would be an important decision, I performed a Divination ritual to ask for Umberlee’s wise counsel, noticing as I did so that the corrupted magic of the Ur-Priests made it very difficult to contact the gods. Still, I was able to learn that a shadowy power from the Abyss was locked within the cube. We decided not to let it out.

Then we entered a laboratory where two powerful spectres asked us to leave. We retraced our steps and entered a section of the place where the walls were once again made of stone. It was a strange place nonetheless, where up was down and down was up depending on the sequence in which we entered the rooms. The first room held some chairs and a table that appeared to be on the ceiling, but the next time we entered it, they were on the floor; or perhaps we were now the ones on the ceiling…

We found ourselves in a room with several exquisite paintings of fantastic beings I recognized as some of the gods of Faerun. Half of them were upside-down. After experimenting a bit with them, we found that we received some effects associated to their portfolio, depending on the orientation of the painting. Ulfgar thus gained a bit of wisdom from the bird-headed god Toth, and Lagaan some bad luck from his own goddess, Tymora, which he cancelled the next time we passed through the room and found her in the opposite position. He also tampered with the painting of Bane, god of tyranny, and seemed to get gripped by positive emotions, because he started looking at me with what I would call friendship and compassion. For now, Lagaan seems to like me even more than after our night of passion in Tyralandi’s bed, but who knows how long these feelings will last?

We passed a room with wooden sarcophagi, another one with a black adamantine pole going from floor to ceiling, and found ourselves in a room with more paintings, which seemed to serve as windows showing us some other rooms in the area.

The helpful dead

The next room we entered contained a pentagram on the floor, and was bathed with a strange aura of peace. At the center of this pentagram sat a skeleton. He was dressed in the tattered robes of a Dire Hunger Monk. Over his mortal remains, the ghostly form of an elf appeared before us. Strangely, he proved quite helpful, especially once we showed him Lagaan’s medallion indicating that we worked for the master of his order.

The undead elf was called Thentyr and had been meditating in this place for several years. He was able to give us instructions to reach our destination: the Observatory of the Unseen Sky. Alas, he had not seen Tyria. In fact, we doubted that she was in any of these rooms, as it was unlikely that she could’ve gotten past the construct.

We made our way back toward the chess-board room and went through a door there. It led us into another room where we found four more undead wearing Dire Hunger Monk robes. Judging by their appearance, they seemed to have been turned into wights. Just like Thentyr, their leader proved to be quite talkative and helpful. He knew Lagaan’s father, Arafern, who he considered to be very smart. Arafern had apparently left this place two years ago by teleportation, with the help of an adventurer. A month ago, he had contacted the head wight by magic, telling him that he was doing all right and that he was still in Scuttlecove. Apparently, he can be found at the Rusty Shunt, by talking to Lars Landicaster, a man we already know.

The four monk-wights were still in the grip of the terrible hunger even in their state of undeath. One of them, clearly not possessing the same discipline as his leader, suddenly attacked Ulfgar, but his attempt proved quite ineffective, as he only managed to bite down on the dwarf’s nearly impenetrable armor. I channelled my divine power through the symbol of Umberlee and took control of the wretch, forcing him to his knees. I then allowed his brothers to sate their hunger on his miserable flesh. While they were devouring their former comrade, we made our way down the stairs at the far end of the room.

We reached a place with a telescope that we immediately guessed was the Observatory of the Unseen Sky. After examining the device for a little while, Lagaan was able to figure out how to make it work. This incredible apparatus enabled us to look at any location throughout the multiverse. We examined several places of interest, from heavenly landscapes to the bowels of the Abyss: the Gaping Maw, Demogorgon’s domain. We beheld the black fortress of Saint Kargoth the Betrayer, champion of Demogorgon and first Death Knight. Lagaan was also able to tune the device to look at the fortress of Demogorgon himself. He saw the Prince of Demons on a balcony of Abysm. But Demogorgon was aware of the magical connection, and he interrupted it with a wave of his tentacles.

I also asked Lagaan to look at the Halfling realm of Greenfields. He was surprised and claimed that he saw that the little guards there looked grim and alert. It seemed they had been attacked recently… But I didn’t explain that it was to this place that I had sent the exploding Shadow Pearl and the putrid flesh monster of Taboo Island.

Red and blue

We had reached two of our three goals so far, but we still needed to find Tyria. The mistress of the Skindancer Academy had claimed that she had sent Tyria to an area called the Vault of Death. We returned to Thentyr and asked him about it. He said it sounded familiar, and could be found either beyond gate C9 or C19. He also explained to us that the gates numbered “C” led to locations in the palace that were truly on the material plane. Those with the code “B” led to extra-dimensional ‘pocket planes’, such as the one we were currently in. Those marked “Z” led to other planes altogether.

We made our way back to the chamber of so many doors, and located the two gates Thentyr had mentioned. First, we went through C9, appearing in a room where half the floor was tiled in red, and the other half was tiled in blue. Standing on the red tiles was a towering Ice Devil, and on the blue tiles stood an Astral Deva.

“You shall not pass,” they claimed in unison.

We tried to learn from them if this was the vault of death, but they proved most unhelpful. The Deva appeared so bored that he was itching for a battle against mortals. He was also quite rude and arrogant. The devil seemed more subtle, but would also probably be forced to fight us by the ancient magic that bound him here.

The Deva summoned a Blade Barrier behind us to prevent us from leaving through the portal. It seemed that a battle was inevitable…

Hammer 2nd, 1377

Alone in the tower

In the morning, we prepared for our excursion into the Ur-Priests’ Palace. We had three goals today: to find new information about Lagaan’s father, to find the book of the Dire Hunger Master, and, most importantly, to find Tyria. I hoped that our little friend was somehow still alive, but my rational mind calculated that her chances of survival for such a long time in the deadly citadel were dramatically low. Nevertheless, we had but to find her corpse to save her: if we did, I would use my potent magic to bring her back to life.

We returned to the monastery of Dire Hunger, where the old master of the order gave us the medallion with the skull and inverted pyramid symbol. Then, we approached the palace of the Ur-Priests. It was menacing indeed, but we felt that if that other group of adventurers have ventured within and lived to tell the tale, then so would Trouble! Following the old monk’s advice, I protected the entire group against lightning; I also cast a Wind Walk spell on everyone, and our minds were once again joined together in a Telepathic Bond by Sparkillo. We flew, like little storm clouds, toward the top of the main tower. As we did so, the defenses of the keep were activated, and suddenly, we were beset by lightning; but Umberlee protected us and we were immune to the blasts.

We entered a room with no visible exits except a great shimmering portal. It was decorated with a great fireplace within which roared a great fire, most likely magical in nature. On one of the walls, a large painting showed a beautiful landscape, and a few blood-red sofas were placed around the room. On one of them sat a skeleton draped in old robes. As we approached it carefully, its skull became animated and began speaking with us. Although we were wary, we soon realized that this creature did not wish to harm us. Rather, it was the deceased spirit of a philosopher left here by the Ur-Priests. In life, this man had pondered the meaning of life in all its forms, and was now condemned to an eternity of undeath. This was a sane but tormented soul, who regretted the evil he had done in the last years of his life. We offered to end his miserable existence, but he doubted he would find safe haven in the afterlife because of all the sins he had committed.

The skeleton, whose name was Kutugar, claimed that he used to be visited by Ur-Priests and Dire Hunger Monks in the past, but that nobody had come into this room in the last five years. He warned us of a terrible construct guarding the room of many doors beyond the portal. Sparkillo took pity on this poor wretch, who was all alone here, and teleported him to his family’s mansion in Sasserine. He even took the time to write a note:

“Greetings, Mother.

Sparkillo”

After examining the portal for a little while, Sparkillo understood the runes that adorned its archway. The text was written in Celestial, which he spoke, and said that this gate was marked with the code C7. The Dire Hunger Master had told us we should seek the door B13.

This portal was powered by energy from the celestial plane, stolen and channelled here by the Ur-Priests. Even though its radiance sickened me a bit, it pleased me to know the energy of the high and mighty do-gooders was being used here without their consent. With a bit of work, Sparkillo managed to activate the portal, and we all stepped through it together.

The Seven-Headed Juggernaut

We entered an immense room with about fifty other portals: this was clearly the ‘room of doors’ we’d been told about. Its guardian stood at the center of the place: it was an enormous seven-headed hydra made entirely of metal. It slowly lurched to life and its fourteen eyes began glowing with an infernal light. Its belly shone as brightly as if it were made of molten lava. It rumbled ponderously toward us, ready to attack, and we had no choice but to defend ourselves.

Sparkillo quickly told us about iron golems through the mental link, but we soon found out that this creature was entirely different. We briefly wondered which strategy to take: attacking it normally, or trying to avoid it, finding the correct gate, activating it, and fleeing. As usual, we were badly coordinated, and ended up doing a mixture of both.

Ulfgar and Raguhl bravely charged the colossus. Lagaan shot arrows at it, but soon realized they bounced harmlessly off the creature’s almost indestructible shell – he then turned invisible and tried to locate the portal ‘B13’.

Using some divination magic, Sparkillo understood that the creature was slowed by cold energy. I blasted it with an Ice Storm, and indeed, it moved more sluggishly after that, but still it breathed on us with the terrible energy of its many heads. Each seemed to have a different power: fire, ice, magic-negation, poison… The most annoying of all was an unbreakable cage of crackling lightning that imprisoned victims within.

I moved around the battlefield, casting healing spells here and there to help my companions – I knew that none of my magic powers could seriously affect this creature, except for cold spells. Sparkillo used his teleportation magic to save Ulfgar and Raguhl when they got stuck inside the lightning cages. Raguhl, who was enraged as usual, ended up doing a great deal of damage to the monster. Sparkillo also called upon the powers of a Limited Wish to be able to create rust on parts of the monster with a mere touch, a magic normally mastered only by druids. He also caused much damage to the juggernaut with this trick.

Thankfully, as I acted as a mere healer in this battle, the construct mostly ignored me, only blasting me with a single stream of ice at one point. My joints were half-frozen and my movements got much more sluggish afterwards. My companions suffered much more, especially Ulfgar and Sparkillo, who were trampled on several occasions by the immense creature. With Umberlee’s blessing, they survived.

To keep it slowed, I cast a Freezing Sphere at our enemy once the effects of the ice storm wore off. Suddenly, the metallic hydra realized that one of the portals had flared to life: it was Lagaan who had, under the cover of invisibility, been able to activate it. The titanic machine breathed several cones, clouds and rays of energy in the thief’s vicinity, desperately trying to protect the gate. Poor Lagaan suffered much from this ordeal, but survived it with my help.

Finally, just as the gate swirled open, Sparkillo touched the construct one last time with his rusting grasp, and the entire structure of our opponent gave way; the mighty draconic golem crumbled to the floor in a deafening cacophony of twisted metal.

We caught our breath as I healed our many wounds. I had expended a great deal of my magical powers during the fight, but it had been worth it: we had slain the terrible guardian placed here by the Ur-Priests.

Hammer 1st, 1377

War is brewing

Today is the first day of the year 1377, the Year of the Haunting. Such an ominous name; I wonder if it will have any special meaning for us?

Following Harliss’s suggestion, we spent a good part of the day finishing the repairs on the Sea Wyvern with tools and magic, and then trying to free it from the wreckage. It was a good thing we had all those freed slaves with us, because it was tiring work. Finally, around mid-afternoon, the ship became un-stuck, and it was repaired enough to sail safely. We left Scuttlecove and Harliss guided us to a hidden cove where the Wyvern would be safe – for now.

We now count three more members in our crew: the men that we freed from the cells below Talos’s temple. They were all hardy sailors and decided to join our cause when they heard we were going up against the Crimson Pirates. Over the past two days, Sparkillo has also returned twenty more of the slaves we have freed back to Sasserine. Fifteen slaves remain with us at the moment, including the receptionist and the four ‘whores’ from the Bird Cage. These were in fact regular people who had been captured by pirates, and who had happened to be attractive enough to be sold to the harpies to serve in their brothel.

Tonight, Harliss claimed that she knows some pirates who could help us mount an attack against the Crimson Fleet. Now that our reputation is getting stronger in Scuttlecove (and as more and more sites become littered with the bloody corpses of our opponents), she hopes that she will be able to gather a large enough pirate fleet to attack the Crimson Pirate base known as the Wreck. Since a frontal assault with just the Sea Wyvern would be suicidal, she claims that if these allies can draw the main Crimson Pirate forces out of the base, Trouble will then be able to infiltrate it discreetly and hope to defeat Vanthus and free Lavinia.

Of course, those attacking the Wreck will be in great danger, so it would be greatly beneficial if we could rally more people to our cause, like Bone’s troops or perhaps the Dire Hunger Monks. Harliss feels confident that the Protectorate will help us as well.

It will take Harliss a few days to gather all those people. In the mean time, we will be able to venture into the ruins of the Ur-Priests’ palace and try to find Tyria and the information regarding Lagaan’s father.

Guilt and sorrow

Evening approached. Tonight, in cities across Faerun, even in the hellhole that is Scuttlecove, people would celebrate new year’s eve. However, aboard the Sea Wyvern, the mood was rather dark, and few were those who felt like celebrating. This was the case despite the day’s threefold successes: defeating the local clergy of Talos, freeing Moretta, and destroying Tolin after he suffered abominable torments and was turned into an undead!

Unfortunately, Harliss visited us on the ship and brought bad news with her. She claimed that the Crimson Pirates surely knew about our victory over the Seventh Coil, and that their retaliation would like be quite deadly. She suggested that we should free the Sea Wyvern from its current predicament and go hide it in a secluded cove she knew about, not far from the city. She was right, of course. Our vessel remained much too vulnerable as it was, stuck against the wreckage at the entrance to Scuttlecove’s harbor. We decided that we will leave this dangerous location tomorrow.

Then, there was the case of Amit. The rat claimed to have knowledge that could allow us to infiltrate the Crimson Pirate base. Lagaan and Sparkillo returned to the city with the hope of learning what he really knew by magic and/or coercion.

During the evening, Moretta regained consciousness. Once again, Brissa and I were alone in the room with her. She was filled with shame for what she had done, and apologized profusely to me. But I remained hard as stone even in the face of her tearful apology, which came far too late. When she tried to hug me, I kept her at a distance. I would not be swayed by her tears. In a hollow voice, I told her what had become of Tolin and of their child, which of course only increased her miserable sobbing.

“But look on the bright side,” I told her with a drop of venomous sarcasm,” at least your little darling is safe away from me now…”

Brissa had not suffered as I had from Moretta’s actions, so she was able to comfort her. A tiny part of me yearned to do the same, a part of me wept alongside Moretta, but I kept it tightly restrained. This was the part of me that had been foolish enough to confide in her, to trust her, and to tell her the story of my son’s sacrifice. Moretta had been the first person I had told my story to. And ultimately, it was this weakness of mine that had triggered this entire chain of events: if I had not trusted Moretta enough to tell her how my son had been sacrificed, she would never have fled Farshore in the first place. None of this would’ve happened. Her child would still be safe. Tolin would still be alive.

So in a way, this was all my fault. Like all mortals, I am flawed, and despite my great strength of character and my divine powers, there is a part of my being that is soft, gentle, trusting. And it is this flaw in my soul that caused so much harm. Do not worry, Moretta. It will never happen again. I will never be so weak again. Especially not toward you.

After one last hard look at the whimpering fool, I turned away and closed the door behind me so I wouldn’t have to endure her pitiful sobs anymore. I then spent some time on the deck, under the stars, with a few of our sailors, standing watch in dark contemplation of recent events and of the foreboding future.

So much death and suffering surround us… We are locked in a constant, terrible struggle, and for what? Our enemies are but pawns of the Prince of Demons. Do they even understand WHY they oppose us? Probably not… We are all but pieces of flotsam drifting on a sea of pointless hatred and petty selfishness… Condemned to drown ignorant and alone…

I was brought out of these dark musings by the return of Lagaan and Sparkillo. They didn’t go into the details of their meeting with Amit, but I got the sense that it was somewhat less than a resounding success. They didn’t have any actual information about the Crimson Pirate base, nor did they bring back a charmed prisoner as they had planned on doing, so I wondered what they had actually accomplished… It seemed that the negotiations with Amit were still in a rather vague territory. He claimed that he had worked for the Crimson Pirates in the past, and therefore knew their base well, but that he had been sold into slavery to the Seventh Coil due to a disagreement with a rival captain of the Crimson Fleet. Yet the only clear way of getting information from him was to pay him his ransom, which due to what I could only imagine had been some sort of blunder on the part of my companions, had now doubled to ten thousand gold pieces.

I saw no need to spend so much money, or to even deal for a minute longer with this despicable cur, since Harliss had assured us that she could deliver the same information. The other members of Trouble weren’t sure what to do, but I gave them my opinion again: I didn’t trust Amit, and we would be fools to give him our money. If he was callous enough not to give us the information we needed after we had saved him from the Seventh Coil, information that we would use against those who had put him in captivity in the first place, but instead tried to leech an exorbitant amount of money from us, then he could go to hell as far as I was concerned. Or to the Abyss, whatever awful lower plane he preferred.

The hidden temple

Once the battle was over, I tended to the group’s wounds as usual. Neither of the fighters had been harmed, actually, and I had only been superficially wounded despite Tolin’s best efforts. It had been a difficult fight, but we had survived thanks to our great might, some luck, and especially Umberlee’s protection against death magic and lightning.

“She’s here!” suddenly exclaimed Lagaan. “She’s in the temple!”

“Who?” asked Ulfgar.

“The Slaad! Quick, follow me!”

He led us downstairs, into a dark hallway. Further ahead, the Death Slaad was waiting for us, a hideous being holding a small shape in its bony arms. We all understood what the little bundle was: Moretta’s baby. The Slaad smiled at Lagaan with its disgusting long teeth and vanished, along with the baby, of course… It had all happened too fast for us to react.

We explored the underground level. A strange, rhythmic noise could be heard from further ahead, a sound of metal hitting metal. We eventually found a zombie that was mindlessly banging a shield with a mace to create this cacophony. Only once we killed it did silence settle into the dark catacombs once again. We then realized that we were in a corridor with jail cells, and that the zombie had been making this noise, most likely, to keep the prisoners from sleeping and regaining any spells at their disposal. We looked into all the cells and found three men in some of them. In the last cell was a woman… the woman I had been looking for.

Lagaan quickly unlocked the door and I stepped inside.

Moretta was chained to the far wall. She was dressed in filthy rags and her hair was unkempt. I could see marks of torture on her body. A glimmer of fearful hope shone in her dark eyes as she watched me enter the cell like a majestic savior.

“Belessa!” she cried in a voice made hoarse by countless hours of screaming and crying. “I understand now… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

With that, she fainted. She was clearly suffering from sleep depravation due to the zombie’s cacophony.

I approached slowly. I had been thinking about this moment for so long… I had pictured it going so many different ways. Sometimes, I had imagined that our reunion would be filled with tears, and that I would hug her tight, with an open heart ready to forgive anything. At other times, I had foreseen that I would not be so lenient, instead punishing her soundly for the trouble she had caused me.

And now that I finally found myself in that situation, I felt somewhere in the middle. I still greatly resented Moretta for betraying me, for abandoning me, for playing me for a fool. I had so many enemies in Farshore, among the Jade Ravens, Lavinia, and even within my own band of adventurers; the only person I had really trusted had been her. But she had broken that trust…

And yet, the greatest portion of my rage had been directed toward Tolin. I had fantasized about the various torments I might inflict upon him as punishment for turning Moretta away from me. But alas, as usual, I had been robbed of the satisfaction of such a revenge. Someone else had tortured him. Someone else had killed him. Someone else had turned him into an undead plaything. I found solace in the knowledge that his last few days had been atrocious… But now I was left with nothing. Moretta was a broken woman. She had been captured and tortured. The man she loved was dead. Her newborn child had been taken to another world by a monstrous fiend. She had betrayed her mentor. And it had all been because of her own stupidity. At least, it seemed she was aware of that fact now. But unfortunately for her, it was far, FAR too late.

Moretta was finished. She had lost everything. Even if I had wanted to punish her, there was nothing left I could’ve done to her that could’ve worsened her misery.

So I did the only constructive thing I could do. I healed her physical wounds while Lagaan unlocked her manacles. Even though most of her bruises and scars vanished, she remained unconscious. I told the others I wanted to bring her back to the ship. They nodded in silence. They had some idea how I felt about the whole situation, and they were wise enough to remain quiet. I was neither in the mood for jokes, nor for lectures on morality.

We then looted the corpses of our enemies and found many precious magical items once again. We also found a secret door in the staircase, which led down to another flight of circular stairs. We followed it into a deep underground chamber which contained an altar to Cyric and a pentagram in the middle of the floor. Cyric, the Prince of Lies… So at least now I had some confirmation that Talos hadn’t been behind this convoluted plot, as I had suspected. One or several of these clerics had in fact served Cyric, the god of murder, deception and illusion. It indeed seemed quite typical of his worshippers to manipulate a simple-minded bully like Shondesh.

We had seen a smaller shrine to Cyric in town, close to Red Foam Whaling, and I found myself wondering if there was any connection between the two… Perhaps we should ‘visit’ it some time.

Sparkillo examined the pentagram and informed us that it had likely been used to perform special rituals, such as the reanimation of Tolin into a special kind of undead we had been unable to identify, and the warding of this temple against scrying.

In Cyric’s shrine, we also found several treasure chests.

“There should be more than enough in these to pay for Amit’s information,” said Sparkillo.

“I disagree,” I said. “We shouldn’t give a single gold piece to that snake. I don’t trust him. Remember: we’re talking here not only about a thief, but about a thief who betrayed the thieves’ guild and became an ally of Vanthus…”

Sparkillo teleported us back to the Sea Wyvern, along with Moretta, the three men we had rescued from the temple’s cells, Tolin’s grotesque corpse wrapped in a blanket, and the severed heads of three of the higher-ranking cultists. I might try to interrogate them later by necromancy if the opportunity ever presents itself.

Once again, the crew greeted us with a healthy dose of fascination for our latest battle. Kaskus gasped when he was shown what remained of Tolin.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” said Raguhl. “We had no choice. We got there too late…”

Brissa helped me to carry Moretta into a private room of the Magnificent Mansion. Together, we washed her and clothed her with a clean robe. Brissa looked worried about what I might do to Moretta. She knew how angry I felt toward my former acolyte. She had caught glimpses of my fury during my darkest moments.

“Don’t worry, I won’t harm her,” I said after a while. “She’s safe now. She has suffered enough… I will not push the cruelty further. Everything she’s done, she did out of stupidity, not out of malice. Once she regains consciousness, she will be free to leave if she so wishes. I will not try to stop her.”

“What about her baby?” asked Brissa. “Did they…”

“The baby was still alive when we got there,” I said, looking straight into Brissa’s dark eyes. “But alas, it was captured by a terrible foe, the same Slaad who captured a fragment of Lagaan’s soul while he was in the Fugue Plane. Now, it seems she has brought the infant back to Limbo with her…”

Brissa paled. She realized that whatever fate was in store for that unfortunate child was a terrible one indeed.

“Yes, Brissa, it’s a tragedy,” I continued as I glared at Moretta’s unconscious form. I was unable to feel sorry for someone so pathetic. “And it’s all because of her! What a fool! She is dead to me. I will not harm her, out of respect for the friend she once was… But I feel no pity for her. She brought this doom upon herself.”

Crushing the zealots

We approached the temple of Talos with murder on our mind. Before we entered, I protected the group from lightning and death magic, which proved to be a very good move on my part.

Inside, the huge planisphere of twirling metallic stars and planets at the center of the main worship hall still crackled with lightning. Thunder bolt motifs decorated the floor and the circular walls of the grand dome. Around the temple stood six statues of Talos, and the pools of water between them were animated as if by a constant storm. Two wide stairways at the other end of the room led up to a series of spiralling balconies, and three doors opened near their base. It was really a very nice-looking temple. We would have to try not to damage it too badly.

Three acolytes of Talos busied themselves across the temple. They obviously wore heavy armor under their metallic-looking robes, and they carried heavy silver flails. One of their comrades, a dwarf, was on a platform at the center of the planisphere, hard at work repairing one of the device’s mechanisms. Two pirates also stood near the complex machine and prayed to Talos.

“Good morning everyone,” I shouted, “what a wonderful day it is to worship the mighty UMBERLEE, uncontested mistress of Storms!”

As expected, all eyes turned toward me. One of the acolytes, a broad-shouldered man with an ugly scowl, approached me with his fingers on the hilt of his flail. Alas, his attempt at intimidation fell short when Raguhl and Ulfgar stepped up on either side of me. The warrior-priest realized that we meant serious business.

I flashed the acolyte a confident smile and gestured to my two warriors. “Let’s clean this place up, boys…”

The acolyte drew his flail, but not fast enough. Before he could even try to use it, he collapsed to the floor, his body hacked to pieces by Raguhl’s heavy sword. Ulfgar rushed the two innocent bystanders, as he loves doing so much. They drew their sabers to try and defend themselves against the furious dwarf, but they didn’t stand a chance. One of the acolytes at the back of the room fled through one of the doors to go warn his superiors, and in the mean time, the dwarven priest amidst the machine cast a Silence spell around us. Thankfully, I wasn’t affected by it, as I had protected myself against this precise spell before entering. I gestured toward the offending midget with my ring of telekinesis and flung him down into the machine, where he had to dodge the moving parts or be crushed by them.

From the six statues of Talos scattered all around of the room, six bolts of lightning arced in our direction to try and shock us to death, but once again, we were left unharmed thanks to my magical protections. Since I had known what kind of adversaries we were up against, I had been able to ward us very well.

One of the two pirates collapsed under Ulfgar’s waraxe as Raguhl charged the second acolyte. Sparkillo moved to the right side of the machine, and I couldn’t see Lagaan, for he had turned invisible. The dwarven priest of Talos got back on his feet and cast another Silence spell close to Sparkillo. I joined Ulfgar in his fight against the pirate captain, who took several wounds from both our weapons. The man focused his attacks on me, since I wore the illusion of being dressed only with flimsy pirate clothes, and his eyes widened in surprise when his blows were deflected by my unseen armor.

One of the far doors opened, and the acolyte who had fled there returned with a tougher-looking priest armed with a spiked chain. Sparkillo waved his staff at the two enemies, blasting them with a Cone of Cold. In fact, he also caught Lagaan in the area, as he couldn’t see him: he had, as usual, neglected to cast See Invisibility on himself, a move that was especially poor in this particular fight, as we will see a bit later. Thankfully, though, Lagaan completely avoided the effects of the spell.

The second acolyte was felled by Raguhl, and Ulfgar left me to deal with the captain while he ventured into the metallic chaos of the rotating planisphere to go fight the dwarven priest. By then, most of the room was covered in magical silence, but we were still able to communicate with each other through our usual telepathic link. Also, Sparkillo was talented enough to keep using his spells through the silence, although it was more difficult for him to do so without uttering the incantations out loud. All the while, the statues still attacked us (and only us, not our enemies), with lightning, but it was in vain, for Umberlee’s magic protected us completely.

My trident bit deeply into the captain’s flesh, and his features took on a look of terror. He realized he had no chance of besting me in combat, and decided to flee. As he did so, I wounded him one last time, and it is with a heavy limp that he moved toward the entrance doors. I could’ve easily chased after him, but I didn’t see a point. I actually wanted him to escape and spread rumors of our terrible wrath throughout the city.

Lagaan let out a mental curse through the link. The priest with the spiked chain had somehow sensed his presence despite the invisibility, had somehow managed to avoid his trip attempt despite the invisibility, and had somehow managed to touch him despite the invisibility, unleashing a spell that would’ve surely slain Lagaan, had he not been protected by one of my Death Wards!

Raguhl rushed toward the third acolyte, but suddenly, a Wall of Stone appeared near them. Lagaan and the man with the spiked chain were on the other side of the wall. I couldn’t see who had cast the spell, because as I suspected and as we would soon discover, that person was invisible. If Sparkillo had seen the invisible caster, he would’ve been able to attack him, but instead, the so-called genius was wasting his time firing his heavy crossbow at the spiked chain wielder.

Ulfgar killed his Talos-worshipping kinsman, whose limp body was crushed a few moments later by the moving parts of the planisphere. An invisible woman then materialized out of invisibility next to Sparkie and wounded him with a nasty Harm spell. Just after that, Ulfgar and I became surrounded by the thick morass of a Solid Fog. My movements became sluggish, but I cast a Freedom of Movement spell on myself and ran out of the fog’s area. Just as I escaped the mist, Sparkillo teleported near me, and I could tell he was badly wounded. He had done this to get away from the deadly woman who had mistreated him like that. I saw her from afar: one side of her face was ruined by a hideous scar, but she moved with a lethal grace. Somehow, I guessed that she was the leader of these cultists.

Ulfgar also escaped the fog’s area and appeared close to the two of us, but immediately after, a Wall of Fire came into being not far from us, blocking access to the far side of the room where Lagaan was fighting for his life. On the other side of the huge machine, we knew that Raguhl was also fighting, but that his way was also barred, this time by the wall of stone.

This invisible spellcaster was starting to get quite annoying, so I cast an Invisibility Purge which allowed us to see him, a nasty-looking tiefling flying with impunity on the other side of the whirling machine, casting spells left and right. Sparkie took the three of us on the other side of the walls through a Dimension Door. We appeared close to Lagaan, who was fighting two tough-looking opponents: a man in black armor, and the high priestess. At their feet lay the man with the spiked chain: Lagaan had pierced his vitals with his deadly blades. Just as we materialized, a section of the stone wall crumbled into pieces, and a very angry Raguhl emerged from the opening, also coming to Lagaan’s aid.

The black-armored man touched Lagaan with another powerful spell, which thankfully, Lagaan resisted. Otherwise, he would’ve been sent to another world!

We faced three powerful foes, but things got even worse as two other doors opened and several more opponents came through. Some were acolytes, with their metallic robes and silver flails, one was a half-man, half-demon, and another was… Tolin?!

His new appearance was truly horrible, for he was now some kind of undead wielding his two swords. The wicked priests must have tormented him beyond imagination. My companions stopped for a moment as they realized the atrocity of what had happened to the leader of the Jade Ravens.

Me, a satisfied grin crept over my face. The jackass had gotten exactly what he deserved for turning Moretta against me.

The man in black armor turned to face Raguhl, and tried to send him to the Abyss with another spell, but the lizardman resisted as well. Yet, turning to face the barbarian proved to be the priest’s last, and fatal, mistake. He died an instant later, struck in the back by Lagaan. Never turn your back to a rogue…

Of the entire group, I was the closest to the new enemies, and several of them charged toward me, including Tolin. I tried to block his powerful attacks as best as I could with my shield, but one of them got through and wounded my thigh.

Lagaan was hit by another powerful spell, this one cast by the High Priestess. He was bleeding from many wounds by now. Sparkie had also been badly wounded by the disfigured priestess, and the tiefling fired a volley of Scorching Rays at him, but thankfully, the elven wizard dodged most of them.

Another silence spell surrounded us, the entire great temple was now covered in a zone of silence. It wasn’t a very good move on their part, since both Sparkillo and I could still cast our spells, but the acolytes could not. It seemed that the High Priestess had protected herself the same way I had, for she was also immune to the silence. I cast a Slay Living spell at the tiefling, but he resisted it and took only minor damage.

So as usual, I was relegated to the humble rank of healer/defender, for it was our glorious wizard who had the pleasure of slaying this particularly annoying enemy. The tiefling was struck by a blast of deadly green energy, and he was disintegrated into a small cloud of ashes (and pieces of equipment falling to the floor).

“SPARKILLO!” came the usual cry of victory through our telepathic bond.

“Hey, you’re getting pretty good at disintegrating flying tieflings!” remarked Lagaan.

I was still defending myself from Tolin and the remaining acolytes. I was able to block all of the undead Tolin’s furious attacks from that point on, but the acolytes were very skilled fighters as well, and they were able to deal a few wounds to Sparkillo and me. I held my ground well, but I could tell that the wizard was in great danger. Focusing my thoughts, I closed all of his wounds with a single mighty Heal prayer.

Meanwhile, Lagaan and Raguhl were dealing heavy blows to the priestess. She had moved to position herself in a corner, so she wouldn’t be backstabbed to death like her black-armored lieutenant, but nevertheless, it was clear that she wouldn’t last very long against our mighty warriors. Then, Ulfgar charged her and rammed his axe into her chest, killing her instantly!

Raguhl rushed to my help and attacked Tolin. The undead monster reeled from the impact of the barbarian’s glowing sword and turned to face him. In the mean time, Lagaan approached one Sparkillo’s assailants and assassinated him. Sparkillo took a few steps back and combusted another acolyte with Scorching Rays.

“He’s running away, help me, Belessa!” yelled Ulfgar telepathically.

I looked around quickly and spotted the half-fiend fleeing about twenty feet above the ground. He had cast an Air Walk spell on himself, but he moved slowly due to his heavy armor. Ulfgar moved much faster thanks to his boots of speed, but had no way of getting off the ground. Reaching at a distance with my magic, I imbued him with the same capability to tread on air as if it were solid. He hurried in pursuit of our foe.

Lagaan killed another acolyte, and the last one was incinerated by more fiery rays emanating from Sparkillo’s fingertips. As for Tolin, he was cut to pieces by Raguhl. As his foul undead body fell to the ground with a spasm, Raguhl stared at him with a morose expression. Knowing him, he surely felt badly about the whole thing, as if he had killed a friend.

Over the wall of fire, Ulfgar caught up with the fleeing half-fiend and ended his retreat with a vigorous blow to the spine. Death by dwarven waraxe… the cowardly creature crashed down into the flames.

And there it was… The minions of Talos were all dead… The honor of the church of Umberlee was restored!

A broken shell

On our way to the temple of Talos, we decided to stop at Porphyry House to question Father Shondesh. I remembered him well from Calimshan, where he had held a position of authority. He had been a powerful and arrogant zealot of Umberlee, unflinching in his confidence in our goddess and in his own faith. I hated him, but I still wanted to see if he could be of help.

It felt strange to be back so soon. I felt like climbing up the stairs to go be with Tyralandi again, but I wasn’t sure how she would receive me. Had Lagaan and I been anything special to her, or had we just been two mortals among the thousands she enjoyed throughout her long depraved life?

The same succubus hostess we had met the previous night welcomed us again. When I asked her about Father Shondesh, she led us to a drug parlor downstairs. Several people were lying on low couches, smoking weird pipes. Their eyes were closed or lost in vacant gazes. The air was thick with the smoke of their opium.

We made our way through these unmoving addicts until we reached the couch where Father Shondesh was resting. He, too, was smoking one of those pipes. He looked like but a shell of the man I had met in Calimshan, a man so powerful I had not dared to retaliate against him for murdering my son before my very eyes. His hair was still long and mostly black, but there were now streaks of grey in it. He was still fully clad in plate armor, but its edges were now rusty. He still wore an abnormally large holy symbol of Umberlee, but it hung to the side, neglected. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes were surrounded by dark circles of fatigue. He shivered as if he were cold, and yet his brow was damp with sweat. It seemed as though he was suffering from some form of jungle fever, but I knew the source of his illness was in fact the terrible drug that the priests of Talos had forced him to take. If he ever stopped taking the addictive substance that kept him in this miserable state, he would die.

We asked to question Shondesh in privacy, and the succubus led us to a torture room where we dragged the barely conscious wretch. As we did so, he mumbled barely intelligible words in the language of Calimshan. I spoke a prayer to enable myself to speak that language, and I understood some fragments of his delirium: “let me go”… “everything’s over anyway”… “we’re all doomed” … “let me forget the lie”…

I felt that the room was warded against so-called “good” creatures. Its essence resonated well with me. It was a good thing that Raguhl had decided to wait for us outside the building. While Ulfgar and Lagaan checked out the torture implements, I tried to reason with Shondesh, but it was in vain: he was too far gone. Even a powerful Heal spell wasn’t sufficient to restore his mind. After examining him for some time with Sparkillo, we deduced that he had likely been administered a rare drug from the Abyss, which couldn’t be cured in this world by any means.

Listening to his mad ravings, I believe that Sparkillo and I managed to piece together the main lines of his story. He came to Scuttlecove some time ago to build a temple to Umberlee, but was tricked into a contest of faith by the followers of Talos. Somehow, they won, and Shondesh was completely flabbergasted by that; his arrogance was so great that failure had never been a possible outcome in his mind. Later, when he had turned to Umberlee to get some advice through divinations, he had been terrified to discover that it had been Talos who had answered him in a mocking tone, claiming that Umberlee did not exist and that it had been him all along who had toyed with him.

This “epiphany” had shattered Shondesh’s faith along with his sanity.

I knew, of course, that such a thing was impossible, and that he had likely been the target of a devious plot. It did not surprise me that this arrogant fool had fallen for it, however, it seemed highly suspicious to me that the brutish priests of Talos would’ve come up with such a convoluted stratagem instead of just, say, killing Shondesh. No, that seemed more like the works of priests of the devious gods Cyric or Mask.

As I discussed this with Sparkillo, we suddenly realized that Lagaan was standing frozen in place. We feared at first that he was under some sort of magical or mental attack, but he then spoke hurriedly.

“She’s here… She’s close… I can sense her!”

“What??” asked Sparkillo.

“Who are you talking about? Tyralandi?” I asked.

“No,” replied Lagaan. “My soul… I can feel the fragment of my soul nearby. I can feel the Death Slaad holding the prism. She’s on the island! Somewhere… in that direction!” he pointed toward a corner of the room.

“What is he talking about?” asked Ulfgar, turning toward Sparkillo, who shrugged confusedly.

“When Rowynn killed me aboard the Sea Wyvern, you guys brought me to Fort Blackwall to have me raised from the dead, remember?” said Lagaan. “The place looked like a temple of Lathander, but it was in truth a temple to the Queen of Chaos. And when we returned to the ruins of Fort Blackwall about a year ago, I went down into the temple and met this Death Slaad who was holding a strange prism which contained a fragment of my soul she had taken while I was dead.”

“Ooooh yeah… her…” said Ulfgar, remembering at last.

“There’s still a link between my soul and that fragment, which is in the prism. I can feel the link much more strongly when she’s in our world. And I feel it now!”

“Can you tell how close she is?” I asked.

“Well… She’s not THAT close… But I’m pretty sure she’s on the island.”

We decided to get going. Shondesh didn’t have much information for us after all, not that my hopes had been very high. There was nothing we could do to cure him for now. I looked at his prone, helpless form, and of course, I considered ending his miserable life there and then, to glean a small measure of vengeance for the loss of my son. But in truth, it would accomplish nothing, and Shondesh had been but a crazed zealot who thought he followed the whims of our goddess. For all I knew, perhaps it truly had been Umberlee who had asked him to sacrifice my son. Either way, his current fate was probably worse than death, so I saw no need to show him any mercy with the tip of my trident.

Nightal 30th, 1376

The morning after

It was late this morning when we all gathered around a table in the main room of Sparkillo’s Magnificent Mansion, in the company of Brissa, Harliss and Kaskus. Lagaan and I hadn’t gotten much sleep at all, but we still felt wonderfully energized from the incredible experience. Ulfgar also wore an easy grin, as he had enjoyed the finest things that Porphyry House had to offer. In contrast with the three of us, Sparkillo and Raguhl wore definitely glum expressions. They had both spent the night alone on the Sea Wyvern…

Things were strangely awkward between Lagaan and me. We had just spent a night of passion together, but now that we had gotten to know each other so much better, we shyly avoided each other’s eyes most of the times, only giving each other small, intimate smiles every now and then. Last night changed everything. Things will never again be the same between the two of us.

I had trouble concentrating on the discussions around the table, as I was still bombarded with flashes of the glorious ecstasy of being in contact with Tyralandi’s flesh… and of the love-making with Lagaan, too.

I hid a sudden smile behind my hand while the others were talking. Lagaan was a better lover than I had expected… Now I could understand why Liamae was always coming back for more.

Unfortunately, we needed to focus on less pleasant things: Moretta, Tolin and their baby were still captives of the priests of Talos. Every moment that passed, they might be sacrificed, so we had to strike today, and we had to strike hard. The priests of Talos deserved an especially harsh punishment for causing so much harm to our allies, and for disrespecting their divine alliance with the church of Umberlee. Fortunately, dealing harsh punishment is Trouble’s area of expertise.

We had also learned some information about the Crimson Pirates from Tyralandi, once we had proven to her that we were worthy of it. Of course, it had taken many hours of pleasuring her to be deemed “worthy”, but Lagaan and I had shown great perseverance in this task. The Crimson Pirate base is called The Wreck, and is in fact located on the same island as Scuttlecove, only ten to fifteen miles away. Unfortunately, it is protected by powerful illusions hiding it from view, and it is warded by aggressive anti-scrying protections, as Sparkillo and I had discovered earlier when we had tried to locate our kidnapped friends. And of course, the place is always crawling with pirates and demons of all kinds.

Based on the descriptions we got from Tyralandi and Harliss, it seems that a frontal assault of The Wreck would be suicidal, even for us mighty heroes. The Wreck is almost impossible to navigate, and the only ones who can do that are the captains of the Crimson Fleet, who are all half-men, half-demon Lemorians like Vanthus had been before that unfortunate ‘death and resurrection as a Death Knight’ business. It means that they are quite powerful. Harliss suggested that we could try to locate one and gain his help in order to enter the base, but I found that very unlikely to happen.

While we were busy discussing various attack plans, none of which seemed too promising, Zan joined us. He was late because he wasn’t staying on the Sea Wyvern with us, but rather, at the Rusty Shunt with his new Protectorate buddies. After politely listening to us for a few minutes, he informed us that he had been approached by a man at the tavern. This fellow had claimed to know how to enter The Wreck, and had asked Zan to contact us about it. We were surprised, as we had been pretty discreet about our mission so far.

“Who is this man, exactly?” I asked Zan. “Did he give you his name?”

“He said he’s called Amit.”

Lagaan snorted derisively.

“Does it ring a bell?” asked Ulfgar.

“Yep,” replied the rogue. “That’s that guy who dodged my arrows yesterday.” He was referring, of course, to one of the slaves we had rescued from the Seventh Coil stockade.

“And you said he was an acquaintance?” I asked Lagaan. “What do you know about him?”

“Enough to guess that we can’t trust him. He used to work for me back in Shadowshore.” Of course, we all understood this euphemism to mean that Amit had been a member of the same thieves’ guild as Lagaan. “But he defected to join the Lotus Dragons, a few weeks before we slaughtered them.”

“Not a smart career move,” said Ulfgar with a chuckle.

“Not at all… Then, somehow, I know he became an ally of Vanthus. I think he was at Kraken’s Cove with him and survived the mutation cloud of the black pearl.”

I turned to look at Brissa. The poor girl was holding her clay jug so hard that her knuckles were turning white. She had been at Kraken’s Cove. She had turned into one of those horrible mutants because of Vanthus’s treachery. She would’ve perished there if we hadn’t rescued her.

“And do you suppose that afterward, he joined the Crimson Pirates with Vanthus?” asked Raguhl.

“That would be my guess,” replied Lagaan.

“Well, I’m just delivering his message to you,” said Zan. “He said he’s willing to give you the information in exchange for five thousand gold pieces. And he wants to arrange a meeting with only one of you, because he doesn’t want to put himself in too much danger.”

Lagaan snorted again. He turned to me and we exchanged a look of dark amusement.

“Oh, I’m afraid he’s going to be in a fair bit of danger,” I said. “There’s no way we’re going to pay five thousand gold pieces to that scumbag.”

After a brief discussion, we asked Zan to tell Amit to meet Sparkillo at the Rusty Shunt that evening. We figured the mage would be able to charm him discreetly, and besides, Lagaan would go with him, invisible, in case things went wrong.

We then began preparing ourselves to assault the temple of Talos. We decided to go with just the members of Trouble. Even though Kaskus wanted to help, he was still too weak to fight, so he remained behind on the Sea Wyvern. While we got ready, I asked him why the Protectorate had wanted to free him so badly. He seemed confused by this, and it was Zan who replied in his stead: Kaskus had never actually been in the guild, but when they had seen him being displayed at the hanging plaza, they had realized by magic he was someone powerful and benevolent, someone who would fit well into their organization, and that is why they had asked us to free him.

Zan also passed on to us the thanks of the Protectorate for dismantling the Seventh Coil, who had been among their most bitter enemies in Scuttlecove.

What happens in Porphyry House, stays in Porphyry House

An hour or so after sunset, Trouble returned to the streets of Sasserine. We had washed in preparation for the night’s special event. Harliss had described Porphyry House as the fanciest brothel imaginable: according to her, it was a veritable palace, offering every possible form of pleasure, but also heavily guarded by wicked demons serving mistress Tyralandi.

Lagaan and I used the magic of our equipment to weave illusions of magnificent clothing over our armors. The others were not so splendidly dressed, but at least they were clean. We had seen the building from outside, and it indeed looked magnificent and strangely out of place in this miserable town. Yet it looked even more beautiful inside. As we entered, we saw a number of scantily clad, extremely attractive people of both genders displayed in the large entrance hall. We were greeted by a splendid succubus who made no effort to disguise her demonic origin.

“Welcome, dear visitors,” she purred, “we are pleased to finally receive the visit of the famous adventurers of Trouble.”

“Thank you,” I replied, “are you Tyralandi?”

Her giggle was soft as velvet, and Lagaan said: “No, it’s not her, she doesn’t look anything like her sister.”

I turned to give the rogue a puzzled look, and the succubus answered: “Indeed, I am not Tyralandi, but I serve her in this place.”

“We would very much like to speak with her, if that is possible,” I said.

“I will go and see if she is available to see you. In the mean time, you are welcome to sample the delights we offer here,” she said, waving delicately toward the brothel’s ‘staff’.

“Really?” asked Lagaan. “Are you going to be gone that long?”

“I should be back in about fifteen minutes,” said the succubus.

“That’s long enough for me!” grunted Ulfgar, who was already leering at a few pudgy dwarven ladies.

And so we waited in the entrance hall of the brothel. Ulfgar had gone into an alcove with a dwarven girl and Sparkie was speaking to a small group of pretty human and elven women. I could guess that he was telling them about our adventures, because he was gesturing frantically, and I overheard phrases such as “super awesome!”, “at least a hundred feet tall” and “pew pew pew!” The whores around him seemed more amused than impressed or attracted to him.

Meanwhile, I stayed close to Lagaan and Raguhl. Although Lagaan and I had seen a few specimens that were to our liking, we remembered, unlike Ulfgar and Sparkie, that we were in a dangerous place, and that we were here on a mission. As for Raguhl, he didn’t have much choice but to wait, as there were no females of his kind around (“lizardman women” as Sparkie had called them).

After a while, the succubus returned, and she told us that her mistress was ready to see us. Ulfgar also reappeared around that time, and we followed the lovely demoness up the grand staircase.

`You were pretty fast”, said Lagaan to Ulfgar, “I’m actually surprised you managed to take off your armor and put it back on in such a brief amount of time.”

“Well, I didn’t need to take it all off,” replied the dwarf with a grin.

We were led through several lavishly decorated halls on the way to the mistress’s chambers. Harliss had been right: this place looked like a palace. I hadn’t seen such finery in any of the noble mansions I’d visited in Sasserine. Finally, we were brought into a beautiful boudoir whose main decoration was the statue of a magnificent naked man. But none of us paid much attention to the furniture, because standing in the middle of the room… there SHE was.

I find myself struggling to think of words that can adequately describe Tyralandi’s unearthly beauty. I cannot find any that do her justice. The sensation of meeting her was unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I believe I can honestly say that I am a very beautiful woman, but she was more than just beautiful: she was beauty personified. She was gorgeous in a way that no mere mortal can ever hope to be: her magnetism transcended the physical perfection of her body.

I know that my companions, who are all males, immediately felt a powerful attraction toward Tyralandi, but strangely enough, so did I. Although I’ve never been seriously attracted to another woman physically, this time, I really felt an undeniable and irresistible lust stirring from the deeper parts of my being when I laid eyes upon this otherworldly beauty. I felt my heart begin to race; I ached to touch her, to be touched by her… My mind began to fantasize about her… I had trouble concentrating on anything other than that… I had never felt such a strong desire before, not even for a man!

She was dressed in a long, translucent dress that hid nothing of her splendid body, but only enticed us even more. She spoke to us, and her words rang like beautiful music in our ears. I cannot remember what she said exactly, but we found ourselves sitting down on comfortably padded chairs. Everything that followed, I remember as if it had happened in a dream: the details seem lost in a blur of ecstasy.

In that sweet voice, she welcomed us, told us that we would find sanctuary and pleasure in this place. She walked around us, touching us one after the other; the contact of her soft fingers sent pleasurable shivers in our bodies. The smell of her perfume made us dizzy with lust. When she walked among us, even the air that moved after her caressed us like a silken scarf. Her beauty was truly beyond anything human: everything in the room seemed to focus on her.

I remember speaking to her, but I cannot recall the words I spoke. I remember it concerned our crusade against the Crimson Pirates, and a possible alliance with her. Tyralandi smiled and acknowledged that her master, Graz’zt, hated Demogorgon and wanted to oppose him. She agreed to help us. She knew how we could get to the Crimson Fleet’s base.

I think I also asked her about Shondesh, and she told me that she knew him well, and knew he was a priest of Umberlee, just like me. She was willing to bring him to us.

But Tyralandi wanted something in return for those favors. My heart raced as I hoped that she would ask her for the ‘favor’ that I was dying to perform for her. And thankfully, that is exactly what she asked for!

“My dear Trouble, I will indeed help you,” she said, “but only if you prove worthy of my appreciation. I shall give two of you the occasion of pleasing me this night…”

She paused…

“Belessa, you are beautiful and dangerous like the stormy sea. I have already been in contact with your soul when I sent you that magical dream, but tonight, I want to be in contact with your body,” She held our her hand, and I took it lightly within mine, rising up to stand by her side. For a moment, her hypnotic eyes held mine, and then she turned toward the men.

“Lagaan,” she said, “you are cunning like a fox and deadly like a cobra. I know you have already met my sister, but I can tell you that she could never offer you what I will offer you tonight.” She held out her other hand toward the young rogue, and he took it and joined her as well.

Lagaan and I were standing on either side of Tyralandi. Beaming, she looked at each of us in turn. “We will be together tonight, all night, my lovelies. We will go to my chambers soon.” She turned toward the other three members of the group. “And you, my dears, are also welcome in my House: my servants will tend to your every need this night.”

Our companions had very different reactions from one another. Ulfgar looked very pleased at the prospect, but Raguhl looked grim and defiant, while Sparkillo seemed outraged, and on the verge of tears.

“I… I wasn’t chosen?” he stammered.

“All right lads, let’s get this started, then!” said Ulfgar with glee.

“I will have no part in this,” growled Raguhl as he gripped the hilt of his sword. “Your demon-magic will not win me over, foul succubus!”

“Be at peace, Raguhl,” said Tyralandi in a voice as soft as a caress. “There is no danger for you in this place. We are all friends, and you can find pleasure just like your companions.” She gestured toward an alcove, and a thin lizardman emerged from it, nodding gracefully at Raguhl. It’s only after a moment that I understood that it was probably a female.

“Stand back!” said Raguhl to the creature. “I know what you really are, shape-shifter! If you approach me, I will cut you to pieces!”

Thankfully, the potentially violent situation was defused by an outburst from Sparkie, who behaved like a petulant child. “I can’t believe you didn’t choose me!” he wailed at Tyralandi. “You picked Lagaan? Lagaan?! Come on! And Belessa? She’s a girl! Look at me! I’m gorgeous! Look at this beautiful elven hair, it looks like golden threads! And my face! Look, look, it might as well be chiselled out of marble!”

Tyralandi chuckled softly. “I’ve made my decision, Sparkillo, there are many beautiful elven women awaiting you downstairs.”

Sparkillo stood up like an outraged prince. “I will not have your pity!” he said. “I will leave with my dignity! Come on, Raguhl!”

The two left the room, with Ulfgar following after them.

“Come, my pretties,” said Tyralandi once they were gone, “I want to feel your love.”

Lagaan and I held each other’s hand as we followed her into her bedchamber.

The hand that heals

We traveled back to Scuttlecove through the underground tunnel, then made our way through the streets toward the harbor. Of course, the dangerous crowd watched us lead the thirty dirty and half-naked slaves back to our ship, but none dared to challenge or hinder us. Once we reached the docks and pointed to the Sea Wyvern, a few of the slaves displayed worried expressions.

“Err… Why is the ship stuck among the wreckage? Are you sure this is safe?” asked a man.

My companions turned alarmed gazes toward him, fearing that this fool would incur my wrath, but the harm was already done.

“If the accommodations are not to your liking, my good sir,” I said through clenched teeth, “you are more than welcome to swim back to Sasserine.”

A few crewmembers came to pick us up in the Sea Wyvern’s lifeboats. It took several trips to bring everyone on board, and once I arrived, I was pleased to see that the crew had been hard at work in our absence: they had already begun the repairs. Good lads!

Once the prisoners had been given places to rest, I briefly spoke to Stragdar. The repairs were starting well, but he would need funds to buy additional supplies. We gave him a portion of the valuables we’d looted from our enemies: once sold, it should be more than enough to cover his needs. When I questioned him about Harliss, he informed me that she had passed by earlier, but that she had not yet finished gathering the information on how to reach the Crimson Pirate base. I was not impressed.

I parted company with the dwarf, knowing that I still had unfinished business to attend to. I headed to the room where Kaskus was kept. I found him there, along with Zan. Apparently, the half-elf had kept him company since his rescue.

“Good afternoon, Jade Ravens, how’s everything?” I asked them as I entered.

“Fine, I guess,” replied Zan. “Kaskus has almost fully recovered, except for his tongue, of course…”

“Good, good. So, Kaskus,” I said, turning my gaze toward the dwarf. “Have you reconsidered my offer? Are you ready to start behaving like a civilized person, or are you still stubbornly bent on biting the hand that heals you?”

Kaskus still had some pieces of parchment in his lap, and I could see that several of them were covered in his clumsy handwriting. He had clearly had quite a conversation with Zan. Instead of replying to me in writing, though, he nodded toward Zan.

“He won’t betray Tolin, if that’s what you ask,” replied Zan. “He heard what happened in Farshore.”

“Really?” I said, arching an eyebrow. “You heard what happened in Farshore, Kaskus? So, then, if you know all about the situation, you know that Tolin and Moretta fled like two fools for no good reason. They just packed up one night and fled like thieves, without any actual threat or even a harsh word from me. They sailed over the deadly ocean, and came to Scuttlecove of all places. Oh, yes, that was a truly brilliant plan. And now, I am led to believe that they might be in danger, yes?”

The dwarf looked at me in silence.

“So, hypothetically speaking, if I restored your tongue, what would you do then, Kaskus?”

He wrote down a few words on a parchment, then held it up so I could see: “I would go help my friends.”

“Ah, then, that means they do need help. And I assume that it would be easier to help them if you could actually cast spells, yes?”

The dwarf nodded reluctantly.

“So by refusing to let yourself be cured, you are in fact endangering their lives, you see? That seems like poor behavior on the part of a friend, wouldn’t you say?”

He watched me in silence for a few moments, then nodded again.

“But you see, Kaskus, I’m tired. I’m tired of providing services with my considerable divine magic, only to be treated like a villain by the very people I heal, nurture, protect and nourish. Nothing I do is ever good enough for you people, and why? Because you’re afraid of my religion. The way I see it, Kaskus if I perform this miracle for you, it seems to me that I’m still going to be treated like some sort of horrible monster. Well, that won’t do. I’m tired of being taken advantage of. I want things to change. I want to be respected, and I want to be trusted. I’m tired of handing out freebies to ungrateful little nitwits. So, Kaskus, knowing that the lives of your friends hang in the balance, do I have your word, on your honor as a dwarf, that if I regrow your tongue, you will treat me with trust, respect, and decency?”

Kaskus looked at Zan, and the rogue nodded. The dwarf wrote down: “YES” on his parchment.

“Will you finally tell me where Moretta is? If she’s truly in danger, we can go together to save her.”

He wrote down another “YES”.

“Very well.” I gripped my medallion of Umberlee and began chanting the words of the potent prayer. After a few moments, a wave of healing energy washed over Kaskus. I could see that he felt a strange sensation from within his mouth. Finally, after a few more moments of silence, he spoke at last.

“Uh… Uh… Aahhh… Th… Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Yes, Moretta and Tolin are in danger.”

“Please, tell me your story. What happened when you arrived in Scuttlecove?”

“Well, we sailed aboard a pirate ship for some time,” said Kaskus, his words still heavy as he learned to use his tongue again. “Moretta had gained much respect from the crew as a priestess of Umberlee. Once we arrived here, she sought the cult of your goddess, in hope that they would provide sanctuary for us. She sought a man called Father Shondesh.”

“Yes, I was actually the one who told her about this man,” I replied. “And he’s the one who’s behind this ludicrous misunderstanding of cosmic proportions.”

“What do you mean?” asked Zan with a puzzled expression.

I sighed. “I won’t go into the details of my life story, but I was once an acolyte of Father Shondesh. I was pregnant when I served in his temple, but when my baby was born, Shondesh sacrificed him to Umberlee.”

“That’s … sick…” said Zan with a disgusted grimace.

“Yes. But you see, I told that story to Moretta, and somehow, she came to believe that I would perform the same horrible ritual on her baby once it was born! Do you realize how insane that is? Why would I ever do something like that? I had thought she would’ve been smart enough to realize I would be the last person to do such a thing!”

“Well, we didn’t find this Shondesh after all,” said Kaskus, who didn’t seem all that moved by my tragic story (what did I tell you about ingrates?). “We went to the temple of Talos, but the priests there only laughed at her. They claimed that the cult of Umberlee had been wiped out, and that Shondesh was now their puppet, controlled by a deadly addiction to some drug. Nowadays, he wiles away his days at Porphyry House.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I mused.

“The priests of Talos are monsters,” continued Kaskus with a grim look in his eyes. “They attacked us and captured us. They tortured us…” Kaskus’s gaze grew even darker, and he looked into the distance for a few moments, surely recalling some especially harsh memories. “Moretta and Tolin ‘entertained’ them most, and they decided to keep them longer than me. They grew bored with me, cut off my tongue, and cast me away to be finished off at the Hanging Plaza.”

I nodded. It was a simple story, and I was sure there was more to it. For one, he had made no mention of how he had come to be considered so important to the Protectorate. He also made no mention of Moretta’s baby… I shuddered to think of the treatment the fiends serving Talos would’ve had in store for the defenseless infant. I seethed with anger at the thought of all that the followers of Talos had done, first to Shondesh and his acolytes, but more recently to my poor Moretta. And to think we had almost gone to pay them a cordial visit the previous day!

Things would definitely not be cordial the next time we showed up at their temple…

Alas, as much as I yearned to exact vengeance upon the zealots of this rival faith and to save my dear Moretta, I knew it would not be prudent to rush there right away. Sparkillo had used much of his magic for the day, and our warriors were weary. In fact, Ulfgar and Lagaan had been making many lewd allusions to a visit to Porphyry House they had planned for later that night. Now that I knew that Father Shondesh could be found there, such a visit seemed more tactically relevant than ever.

Freedom from the Coil

It was mid-day by then. We decided to return to the Minting House with the intention of questioning some of our fallen enemies through necromancy, but by the time we got back, we saw that all corpses had mysteriously vanished. The Yuan-Ti sorcerer who had fled had likely warned the Crimson Pirates about this setback, and they had probably sent more Bar-Lguras here to remove the bodies. It’s a good thing we had looted them before leaving. We carefully searched the building, but no one was waiting for us in ambush.

We returned to the chapel of Demogorgon and ventured into the underground tunnel. After about a hundred feet, we passed a ladder leading up. Lagaan climbed it and went exploring under the cover of invisibility. He only found an abandoned house with an old drug addict squatting in it. We then continued and found a fork in the tunnel. We went south, and after some distance, the tunnel ended at a ladder leading up to a warehouse. There, we found a group of Seventh Coil thugs torturing one of their own. We understood that the victim was one of those who had fled from the terrifying screams of the Demogorgon idols at the Minting House. Clearly, the rest of the organization had not appreciated such cowardice, and the man was now paying for it.

We made our presence known, and after a quick struggle, the five thugs lay dead. We approached the captive, who begged to be set free. He was pretty battered up and claimed to be an innocent who had been molested by his captors. But we knew better.

“Please, set me free!” he cried, struggling against the chains from which he dangled. “Those freaks tortured me!”

“Oh, you poor thing, did they torture you… like this?” I asked, piercing his leg with my trident. He screamed. “… or more like this?” I asked as I pierced his abdomen.

“Please…” he wailed.

But this miscreant deserved no mercy. For all I knew, he was one of those who had messed up my ship. I ended his miserable life by stabbing his throat.

Lagaan suggested setting the building on fire, but the rest of us vetoed that pointless idea. Instead, after looting our enemies, we left their bodies on display and left the warehouse doors wide open. We also placed a sign just outside the building that read: “The Seventh Coil is having a liquidation sale. Come on in! Everything must go.”

We then returned to the fork in the tunnel and headed west for a good distance; it was clear that it extended far past the limits of Scuttlecove. We finally emerged on the side of a hill near the town, in a spot hidden amidst the jungle. The tunnel opened into a small fort where another group of Seventh Coil slavers were stationed. After a bloody but not especially remarkable battle, we defeated them, and were able to free the fifty slaves they had in their custody. Most of these were human, and all were young, able-bodied men and women. They had all clearly been chosen for their value as workers, gladiators or prostitutes.

We took the time to talk to them all; we knew that freeing them in Scuttlecove would prove rather dangerous, and as it turned out, most of them hailed from Sasserine, innocent sailors and merchants who had been captured by pirates on the high seas and sold to the Seventh Coil. Most of them yearned to return to the safety of Sasserine, but we were curious to see if any of them would like to start a new life in Farshore instead. As could be expected, few of them accepted the offer, especially since Raguhl revealed the fact that the town had been raided by pirates, demons, and demonic pirates on no less than four occasions so far. Nevertheless, Sparkillo gathered the five brave souls who volunteered to go there and teleported them to our home on the Island of Dread, returning a few minutes later.

Indeed, we felt we had done enough fighting and exploration for the day, and we felt confident that a decisive blow had been dealt to the Seventh Coil, hopefully one strong enough that they would stop bothering us. Therefore, Sparkillo spent much of his remaining magical energy to teleport back and forth to Sasserine, bringing another fifteen slaves back to the city. It is my hope that these people will spread some good word about Trouble over there, and undermine the smear campaign that Zebula Meravanchi, Edvanda Balak and other sordid villains have mounted against us.

This still left thirty prisoners under our care. We decided to bring them back to the Sea Wyvern for now, as we could likely accommodate so many people thanks to Sparkillo’s Magnificent Mansion.

Before we left, though, Lagaan mentioned that one of slaves would not receive shelter. He looked at a skinny youth with long dark hair. The man’s eyes went wide with panic, and he quickly turned and fled. Lagaan watched him run away with a calm smirk and casually fired a few arrows after him, clearly with only the intention of scaring him.

“What are you doing?” growled Raguhl, perplexed. The other slaves also looked at the rogue with a fearful expression, wondering if perhaps he was some sort of murderous maniac.

“Ah, this guy was just an old acquaintance of mine,” replied Lagaan with a shrug. “We just had a little debt to settle…”

“All right, then,” said Ulfgar. “Let’s get moving, people!’

The Monastery of Dire Hunger

Instead of returning to the Minting House to explore the secret tunnel, we decided to go to the Monastery of Dire Hunger. Lagaan hoped to learn clues about his father’s identity and location at that place: one of my latest divinations from Umberlee had pointed to that dangerous place.

Two sinister monks stood guard outside, and they let us enter without a word. Inside, the layout looked like a regular monastery of black stone, except that a huge slab of stone covered the top of the courtyard that would’ve been open in a regular monastery. Perhaps this had been done to prevent flying enemies from attacking from above. The walls were only pierced by murder holes, not windows, and the place was only very dimly lit. It was damp, foul-smelling, and every surface seemed to be crawling with vermin. We were definitely not comfortable in this place, and Sparkillo put on his necklace of adaptation so he wouldn’t have to suffer the abominable smell. Yes, Lagaan is truly fortunate to have companions like us who would go with him into places like this as he searches for his roots.

A monk gestured for us to follow him. With a shiver of disgust, I noticed that there was no flesh on the tips of his fingers. He led us down a steep stairway; several curtains of dead-looking vines barred the way, but they moved by magic to let us pass. I was sure that they represented some kind of magical defence.

“This place is very quaint,” remarked Sparkillo.

We finally reached a great hall, surely the central chapel of the monastery. It was decorated with carvings of suffering humans. Despite the absence of any trees, dead leaves covered the ground, but most disturbing of all were the statues. There were many of them scattered throughout the temple. The fact that they looked highly realistic obviously led us to conclude that they were in fact unfortunates who had been petrified. Most were human thugs or pirates, but there were also a few members of other races, such as an ogre and a few halflings (none of which were Tyria), as well as two beings that seemed to be Dire Hunger monks.

We walked further ahead into the cavernous hall. Our footsteps echoed against the far walls. At the opposite end of the chapel was a throne placed on a dais. Upon this seat of dark stone sat a figure shrouded in a hooded black robe. Its face was hidden in shadows. The being appeared frail physically, but we sensed a great power within him.

“Come closer,” croaked the elder monk on the throne.

Once we were close enough to the throne, the mysterious figure welcomed us. He seemed to know us already, and knew that we had fought the Seventh Coil. This seemed to please him; apparently, the Yuan-Ti had many enemies in Scuttlecove. But there was something disturbing about this man: I heard his words not in the common tongue, or even the Chultan dialect that’s frequently used by humans native to this part of Faerun, but in Chondathan, my native tongue, the one that is spoken in my homeland on the Dragon Coast, far to the north. Yet my companions also understood him, and we later realized that he had, somehow, been speaking to each of us, not by telepathy, but truly by using each of our native languages simultaneously: Elven for Sparkillo, Draconic for Raguhl, Dwarven for Ulfgar, and Chultan for Lagaan.

“Old one, we’ve come to you for answers,” finally said Lagaan.

“And what is it that you seek?” asked the black-robed man.

Lagaan then told him that he had grown up without knowing his father and that a divination of Umberlee had previously led us to a place on the Island of Dread where he would have been able to learn about his father’s identity. Unfortunately, Thorgiff, the tiefling who could have revealed such information had been reduced to a pile of ashes by an overeager wizard before a discussion could take place. He turned to glare at Sparkie, who looked positively bored and was idly playing with his ioun stone.

“Belessa then had another vision from Umberlee that told us to come here and to meet you,” continued Lagaan. “Do you know my father?”

“Indeed, I met your father,” replied the old man. “The last time I saw him, he was in the Ur-Priest’s palace, more specifically, in a location called the Observatory of the Unseen Sky, situated in the very bowels of the palace. No one has been there in years…”

“But… how long ago was that?” asked Lagaan with an edge of excitement in his voice. “Is he still alive? If so, he could be anywhere by now.”

“In the Observatory of the Unseen Sky, you will find more information about your father.”

“Can you tell me more about him? What’s his name?”

“I knew him as Arafern Rakalvanis,” announced the old man. “You will have to venture to the Observatory of the Unseen Sky to learn more. The dark dungeons below the palace can be reached by many pathways, most of which are deemed to be… unnaturally dangerous. But I know a safer way inside, young one, for I was once an ally of the Ur-Priests. “

A pause in the conversation indicated that, of course, such information would not be given freely.

Lagaan got the hint. “What would you like in exchange for this information, ancient one?” he asked.

“I want something that can be found on that level of the ruins. It is a book with a special rune on the cover.” The black-robed man then showed us a scroll upon which was drawn a strange symbol which contained an inverted pyramid and a skull.

“Maybe we could get more quests like this from other people in the city,” mused Ulfgar, “and grab all their stuff in one run. Then we could get all the rewards for them!”

The old man’s black hood turned as if to fix the greedy fighter. “The ruins of the palace are both vast and deadly, even for adventurers such as you. The level of the Observatory in particular is known as the Halls of Artefacts, but know that most items kept within are cursed with the foulest sort of magic. Trust me, master dwarf, when I say that you would not want to come into possession of any of those ensorcelled items.”

Ulfgar glowered at the old man.

“Now listen well,” continued the ancient one, “for here is the way to reach the Observatory: ascend to the highest tower of the palace. Be sure to protect yourself against lightning before you reach that destination. There, you will find an ancient stone archway. Using a medallion I will give you, you will be able to open a portal that will lead to the Room of Doors. It is guarded by an ancient and powerful creature of magic. This sentinel will surely attack you, and you will need to defeat it. Assuming you survive, you will have access to the many doors in the room. The one you must go through, the one that will lead you to the Observatory, to the knowledge you seek about your father, and to my book, is the one numbered B13. Beyond this door… lie the Halls of Insanity.”

We all cast increasingly dirty looks in Lagaan’s direction. Finding out about his father wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

“All right, so let me get this straight,” said Sparkillo. “We’re supposed to go into these dangerous ruins, somehow make our way to the top of the highest tower, face a terrible magical monster, venture into this hall of insanity, then walk through a place filled with cursed artefacts we can’t touch… Anything else?”

“Past all of these obstacles lies the Observatory of the Unseen Sky. It is there, and only there, that young Lagaan will find clues of his father’s whereabouts. But remember, once there, you must also find my book. And don’t try to trick me…

The old man finally stood up from his throne, approached toward Lagaan and gave him a medallion with the same skull-and-pyramid symbol. He also extended his hand toward Lagaan. It was a truly foul appendage, corpse-like and writhing with maggots. While the rogue was staring at it with trepidation, wondering if he was supposed to shake it, the old one touched him. Lagaan seemed to shiver from the contact, but he wasn’t hurt. After a moment, I realized had happened.

“The touch of a powerful Monk can bring death,” I explained telepathically. “You have just been marked by the Quivering Palm, my poor Lagaan. This old freak can now decide to kill you at a distance if he wishes to. He just marked you to ensure you didn’t try to cheat him out of his precious book.”

The rogue replied with a telepathic curse of exasperation.

Raguhl growled at the old man’s treachery. He did not appreciate Lagaan’s life being threatened like this. “Lagaan, you’re my friend,” he said through the mental link, “and I want to help you find out about your father, but Lavinia’s life is in great danger… I dare not wait much longer to rescue her.”

Lagaan nodded. After all, the life of his beloved Liamae was also in the balance. “How much time do I have, old one? We came to Scuttlecove for other reasons too. We want to oppose not just the Seventh Coil, but also the Crimson Fleet. I would prefer to venture into the ruins of the palace only once those enemies dealt with.”

The old one remained silent for a moment, and then took back his medallion and gestured toward Lagaan, hopefully freeing him of the Quivering Palm.

“Then the hourglass shall not be turned yet,” he rasped. “Come back to me once you are ready.”

Bone’s servant

Things were quiet at last – what a furious fight it had been! In total, we had slain six human thugs, four Yuan-Ti sorcerers, two Lemorian Golems and four Bar-Lguras. During the battle, we had heard the sounds of reinforcements from the ground floor, but they had never showed up: they had likely been more worthless thugs who had fled from the effect of the Lemorian Golems’ horrible howls, or perhaps because they’d heard that their allies were getting slaughtered.

As I healed our wounds, Lagaan apologized for harming me. Once again, I could sense that he felt at once amused at having gotten the chance to strike me with the perfect excuse of having been magically controlled, and also slightly worried about what my reaction would be. Honestly, I felt really annoyed at having once again been the target of his attack. It was not the first time it had happened. Why me, I wondered? Was it really a coincidence?

A number of responses flashed within my mind for an instant after Lagaan delivered his apology, ranging from merely yelling at him to inflicting pain in retaliation for his attack; an eye for an eye if you will. But of course, none of those responses would have been constructive toward maintaining an efficient and cordial team spirit within Trouble. Instead, I decided to play it cool:

“It’s all right, Lagaan,” I said with a shrug. “It wasn’t the first time you stabbed me in the back, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. It didn’t even hurt that much, I’m sure it would’ve been much worse if I’d been attacked by a real threat like Raguhl or Ulfgar.“

“BURN!!!” said Sparkillo, wincing as he waved his hand at Lagaan in mock pain.

It was a lie, of course, because in the right conditions, Lagaan can be truly deadly by focusing on the weak spots of his opponents – that’s his specialty. If he wanted to, he could surely join the ranks of an elite group of assassins. But I was not about to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging how much pain he had caused me. My words had the desired effect: they wiped the hint of a grin from his face, and we were able to focus on the serious business of looting the corpses of our fallen enemies.

We found some gold pieces in the minting room – some of the coins were real, some were counterfeit, but we took them all nonetheless. We also looted many magical or otherwise valuable items from our enemies. The Seventh Coil had not only been powerful – they had also been rich. This had likely not been their main base, but we had struck a decisive blow against them. I sincerely hoped that some of the scum-suckers that now lay dismembered at our feet had been among those who had snuck aboard the Sea Wyvern last night and caused all of the damage. It would mean that justice had been served. Among the scrolls we found on the reptilian sorcerers were some of teleportation and protection against scrying… I wondered if those had been used to travel to the Crimson Pirate base, and perhaps to help protect the base from scrying. Indeed, none of my earlier attempts to spy on our captive friends or on Vanthus had succeeded.

We searched all the rooms in the building. Some were used for storage of goods, others were meant to serve as cells, but only one contained a prisoner: he was a filthy, almost comatose human. He didn’t seem to be aware of our presence at all. We left him there for the moment as we continued our search.

The fleeing thugs had left the entrance door ajar, and a few curious bystanders were milling around the building; they had surely been alerted by the sounds of fighting they had heard inside but a few minutes before.

Raguhl showed his reptilian head through the opening. “Can’t you see we’re closed, you dimwits?” he roared menacingly. “This building belongs to the Seventh Coil! Now beat it or we’ll take you in as merchandise!”

The shrine of Demogorgon held little of interest besides two pedestals upon which had surely stood the golems, and a crude altar. However, Sparkillo spotted another secret door in the room, and Lagaan opened it, disabling the glyph of warding that had been placed on it with his truly masterful technique of triggering it and then dodging out of the way at the last moment. Beyond the door, a crude tunnel led toward the northwest; perhaps it led outside Scuttlecove, we thought?

While we were discussing whether to investigate it or not, we heard the soft sounds of a few people approaching down the stairs. We prepared ourselves for battle, but the four dark-robed figures that entered the room were not reinforcements of the Seventh Coil: they were monks from the order of the Dire Hunger.

“Our Master wishes to see you,” rasped one of them.

After a brief telepathic discussion amongst ourselves, we thanked them and informed them that we would visit the monastery later today.

After the monks left, we finished searching the building. We had decided not to venture into the secret tunnel yet, but I wanted to question the prisoner. Using my most potent healing spell, I cleansed the poor man of his drug-induced daze and of the wounds his tormentors had inflicted upon him. His eyes widened in amazement when he realized that he had been saved by some heroic-looking people, and he thanked us suitably. Underneath the thick layer of grime that covered him, I could tell that he was a rather handsome man, and he seemed to have good manners and a good deal of personal magnetism as well.

He introduced himself as Krazol Durodan, and claimed that his master, Kedward Bone, was also an enemy of the Seventh Coil. We didn’t tell him our names, but we introduced ourselves as Trouble and told him we were opposed to the Seventh Coil and the Crimson Pirates. We told him we had heard of his master’s reputation, and that we had no quarrel with him; indeed, we were glad to count him among the enemies of our enemies. Krazol assured us that he would put in a good word for us.

We decided to escort him back to Kedward Bone’s tower: I didn’t want him to risk getting attacked in the dangerous streets of Scuttlecove. Ulfgar grumbled a bit at this “waste of time” as he saw it.

“We’ve got more exciting things to do than this,” he said. “I hope you’re not growing soft on me, Belessa. Why are you being so charitable all of a sudden?”

“Ah, but as you know, my dear Ulfgar, compassion has always been greatest weakness.”

After a few minutes, we reached Bone’s tower, which was guarded by a monstrous feline that shifted in and out of view under the light of day: a Hellcat. Krazol thanked us again for everything we’d done, and he entered the tower.

Nightal 29th, 1376 (continued)

Bloodbath at the Minting House

Most of us were still climbing down the stairs when the battle began. As is often the case, I was at the rear of the group, so I was the last one to join the action. Lagaan was first to jump into the fray, with Ulfgar following him closely. The rogue’s rapier and Sunblade bit deeply into the flesh of one of the human thugs. Suddenly, our movements increased in speed as Sparkillo cast a Haste spell. Raguhl rushed past the humans, heading straight toward the Yuan-Ti standing behind them, striking the enemy reptile with a powerful blow of his greatsword. The Yuan-Ti seemed not to be an assassin like most of those we had encountered so far, but rather some kind of sorcerer. Its eyes swirled like glowing spirals, and it tried to use its gaze to confound my allies.

Two of the thugs hurriedly drank potions, and a dumbfounded look overcame them when they realized they had failed to turn invisible – my Invisibility Purge had foiled their cowardly plan! A third goon drank a different potion and breathed a stream of fire toward Lagaan, but the young rogue nimbly dodged out of the way. Speaking the words of a dark prayer, I snuffed out the fire-breathing man’s soul with a Slay Living spell, touching his spirit at a distance through the powers I had gained as a Hierophant of Umberlee.

A door opened in the far wall, and a second Yuan-Ti appeared. It quickly cast a deadly spell that unleashed a blast of lightning that hit all of us. Ulfgar was the most badly hit of us all, but it takes more than that to slow down the tenacious dwarf. Between my divine resistance to lightning and the added protection of the Heroes’ Feast, I barely felt the effects of the spell.

Two of the human thugs perished under our warriors’ weapons. Ulfgar roared in victory, dropped his shield, and rushed the lightning-casting Yuan-Ti holding his dwarven waraxe with both hands.

Then, a secret door opened in the wall behind Sparkillo and me, at the base of the stairs. We caught glimpses of a sinister shrine to Demogorgon beyond it, but the view was obstructed by a monstrous construct of stone that stood at the entrance: the animated idol was carved in Demogorgon’s image, and we recognized a Lemorian Golem like the one we had fought in the cursed shrine of Fogmire.

Lagaan hurried to engage this new opponent in combat, and Sparkillo came to his help, summoning a glowing fist of enormous size. I also began summoning some help, but that incantation took longer than Sparkillo’s. The golem, sensing that the elven wizard represented a close threat, captured him in the iron grip of its tentacles. Sparkillo screamed in pain, but his cries were soon joined by others coming from behind me. Thankfully, they were just those of the two Yuan-Ti being butchered by Raguhl and Ulfgar. With so many opponents killed already, the floor was already growing slick with dark blood.

In the shrine behind the secret door, twin screams erupted: another one of those Demogorgon-shaped idols was present there. The howls might have brought fear into our hearts, had we not been blessed by Umberlee with our morning meal. The only surviving thug seemed to lose his will to fight, though, and he approached Raguhl hesitantly, holding his scimitar in a trembling hand. My fiendish dire wolf finally appeared in the shrine, and it attacked the first golem from behind. Alas, it only caused very minimal damage. Not wanting to get too close to the golem myself, I healed Sparkillo at a distance.

Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by lumbering, hairy shapes dressed like monstrous pirates! Four Bar-Lguras had materialized within the room, along with yet another Yuan-Ti. I felt a moment of panic at being amidst so many enemies: would I be slain, or perhaps captured and brought back to the Crimson Pirate base to suffer some horrible treatment at Vanthus’s bony hands?

The newly arrived Yuan-Ti cast a Haste spell of his own on our enemies, so that their speed now matched ours. Sparkillo appeared behind the Bar-Lguras, closer to the two warriors, having used his magic to escape the golem’s grasp. The roaring gorilla-demons began attacking us, each of them attacking a different target among Lagaan, Raguhl, Sparkillo and myself. The melee was a thing of brutal madness, our glowing weapons casting strange shadows throughout the room. Meanwhile, the two remaining Yuan-Ti, the one that had appeared with the Bar-Lguras, and one that was in the hallway at the end of the room, were assaulting my companions with their mind-controlling gaze attacks and the secret nightmares of conjured Phantasmal Killers. Thankfully, none of my allies perished from the deadly spells.

Meanwhile, Sparkillo’s giant translucent fist did a remarkable job of blocking the entrance to Demogorgon’s shrine. The golem was not able to move past it, and kept being pummelled by the ghostly appendage. On the other hand (no pun intended), my fiendish wolf didn’t accomplish much before it was slain by both golems; such summoned creatures are quite useless against the powerful creatures we face now, and it’s clearly a waste of time to even bother casting the spells. I cast a Slay Living at the Yuan-Ti close to me, but it survived with a mere wound. The two warriors came to our help, and within moments, two of the massive Bar-Lguras fell to the floor, hacked to pieces by Raguhl’s merciless sword. Strangely, for once, the barbarian wasn’t even gripped by one of his fierce battle-rages; yet he struck with deadly precision against the demons.

Another Bar-Lgura had turned to attack me, but its eyes suddenly went wide as the tips of both of Lagaan’s blades emerged from its abdomen, having clearly pierced vital organs. The simian demon crumbled to the ground with a painful groan. Just an instant after that, though, a fifth Yuan-Ti appeared in the room by magic, bringing with it the second Lemorian Golem. It had clearly used its magic to come to us, since the shrine’s entrance was blocked by Sparkillo’s fist.

The golem’s twin menacing heads looked left and right as the construct began flailing its stony tentacles around, but before it could cause us any harm, it was struck by a blast of green energy that reduced it to a heap of smoking ashes. It had been utterly disintegrated!

“SPARKILLO!!!” exclaimed our excitable elven comrade.

The only remaining Bar-Lgura growled menacingly as it lunged toward Lagaan, perhaps hoping to grapple him to take him back as a prisoner. However, Lagaan kicked it back forcefully: he would not be taken so easily.

“Nice try, faggot!” he chuckled.

Behind the Bar-Lgura, I caught sight of Raguhl as he rushed toward the Yuan-Ti who had brought the golem into the room. With one fell swoop, he sliced off the snake-man’s head with his huge glowing blade. He then turned toward the Bar-Lgura and began fighting it. Ulfgar had gone into the hallway behind us and was fighting two other thugs who had arrived as reinforcements.

Meanwhile, I was focusing on the last Yuan-Ti in the room, but it resisted another one of my deadly spells, so I began striking it with my trident instead. The creature’s eyes swirled like glowing spirals yet again, and this time, it gained control of Lagaan’s actions. Before I realized what he was doing, Lagaan circled around me and struck me by surprise through a gap of my armor. I felt the sting of his holy rapier as it penetrated in my flank. Damn, that thief sure knows how to fight dirty, I never saw the blow coming!

I knew I had to focus on a spell despite the pain, for the next few moments might be my last if I failed to act quickly enough. But should I focus on Lagaan, the Yuan-Ti, or should I simply heal myself to stay alive?

Thankfully, the choice proved easy to make. The Yuan-Ti who controlled Lagaan was bleeding from many wounds it had taken from Lagaan’s blades and my trident. It produced a scroll and tried to read it, no doubt to escape by magic, but I seized the opportunity and pierced it with my trident while it was distracted. Its eyes turned glassy and it slithered to the floor. I turned to protect myself in case Lagaan still acted hostile, but no, he lowered his weapons and blinked a few times, shaking off the magical domination. Then, a mixture of shame, surprise and amusement crept over his face once he realized what he had done to me.

Meanwhile, Raguhl wrestled with the last Bar-Lgura for a few moments before pushing it away and gutting it with his greatsword. The creature collapsed to the ground in a heap of bloody fur.

Most of our enemies were now dead: there remained only one Yuan-Ti in the opposite hallway (whom Ulfgar had not attacked, strangely enough), and the golem that was fighting Sparkie’s magical fist. Ulfgar refused to engage the Yuan-Ti in battle, instead running back into the room to go fight the golem. Raguhl headed the other way and rushed the Yuan-Ti, with Lagaan following him closely. The barbarian struck the snake-man with his sword, and Lagaan shot a few arrows, but before they could slay it, the Yuan-Ti vanished after reading a scroll.

A moment later, Ulfgar finished off the Lemorian Golem. “Hey, where did my friend go?” he asked confusedly when he realized the last Yuan-Ti was now gone. He had clearly been charmed by the reptile.

Sparkillo smiled at him, even though he was shivering from the effects of a Phantasmal Killer he had barely survived. “It seems your friend left you behind, my poor Ulfgar. Perhaps he wasn’t such a great friend after all.”

The dwarf looked positively miserable. “Yeah… Maybe not…”

Nightal 29th, 1376

Avenging the wyvern

The next morning started pleasantly, as is always the case when waking up in an otherworldly palace for a breakfast of divine Heroes’ Feast. Sadly, an unpleasant surprise awaited us outside the portal to Sparkie’s mansion.

As soon as we stepped through the gate, we realized that there was something wrong with the Sea Wyvern. The floor seemed to be at an odd angle, there were signs of damage in the hold, and there was a smell of smoke in the air… We quickly climbed on deck and discovered that our vessel was now shipwrecked against the mass of derelict ships at the entrance of the harbor. Our sails had been burned, and some people had caused much damage to the ship in other places as well. It was clear that a band of people had boarded the Sea Wyvern during the night and had tried to destroy it. They had seemingly not expected it to be made of such sturdy stuff, though, and had likely abandoned the idea and had crashed it here instead.

A fury such that I have rarely felt gripped me, yet I did not lose control of my emotions for all to see. I led an investigation to try and determine who had done this – and if any interlopers were still on board. We quickly discovered that they had all left, and that it had apparently been done by some Yuan-Ti. Clearly, those infuriating reptiles were after us, and would continue to hunt us and annoy us relentlessly until we annihilated them utterly.

I had recently lost Penkus, who I had loved so much, and now to see my beloved Sea Wyvern in this state was almost unbearable. A variety of abominable tortures and excruciatingly slow deaths came to my mind as ways to end the existences of those miserable Demogorgon-worshipping snakes. In a perfect world, I would have gotten the opportunity to properly avenge the damage they had caused to my beautiful ship, the inconvenience they had caused all of us, and the humiliation of feeling that my most prized possession had been treated so badly while we had been soundly asleep. But I was aware that most likely, I would have to settle for seeing them be hacked to pieces by Raguhl and Ulfgar, burned to death by Sparkie, or perhaps, if I was lucky, to feel their life essence being obliterated in an instant by one of my own deadly spells.

A few others said that we should have left some men on watch during the night, but I pointed out that it would’ve been totally useless. Those poor souls would almost surely have been assassinated in the dead of the night. Worse, if we ourselves had slept outside the mansion, we might have gotten slain in our sleep. No, in fact, at least we could take comfort in the fact that none of us had been killed.

What was really infuriating, however, was to think back and realize how much time we had wasted yesterday running those pointless errands, when we should’ve struck mercilessly at the Seventh Coil base. They had likely been shadowing us the entire time, plotting for this operation. Well, it was time to turn the tables on them. The hunters would now become the hunted. If we surprised them in their base, they would be a lot less dangerous than when they had attacked us with their cowardly tactics so far. Yes, there would be a bloodbath at the Minting House today…

I decided to leave the Sea Wyvern stranded in that location. I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of freeing it, only to have it raided by a different group of jackasses a few nights from now. We would get it out of there once we were ready to leave Scuttlecove, or we’d steal someone else’s ship. As much as I loved it, it was, after all, replaceable, unlike Brissa, Tyria or even Lavinia. They were the ones that really mattered.

Sparkillo brought us to shore by magic, and we quickly made our way to the Minting House. It looked abandoned at first glance, but we could see a thin tail of smoke coming out of its chimney. We entered it via a Dimension Door; the ground floor was empty and abandoned, but in the basement, behind one of the doors there, we found a group of five human thugs and a Yuan-Ti taskmaster busy at a minting press. They were hard at work producing counterfeit coins.

They looked up as we approached, obviously surprised to see us there.

“Kill them!” hissed the Yuan-Ti as they all reached for their weapons.

The barbarian’s wisdom

We continued looting the tower for a while, taking a few more items of value, including a chest of wine bottles that Lagaan insisted on bringing back to the ship. Before leaving, I helped the four dazed whores into some semi-decent clothing; we brought them, as well as the man who had greeted us at the front desk (and who had miraculously survived the fight against the Yuan-Ti) with us back to the Sea Wyvern. I wasn’t sure who these people were, whether we could trust them or not. Human beings are such frail creatures; the countless monsters of the world ceaselessly prey upon our race for food or amusement. It’s really quite a wonder that humankind hasn’t become extinct. But I felt pity for those poor people. I’m not really sure why… Perhaps I was in a charitable mood from having saved Harliss and Brissa. But it cost us nothing to save their lives, really. Why not do it?

Once on board, the men rejoiced upon hearing of our victory, and that we had freed Harliss and Brissa (who was well-loved and respected by the mercenaries). However, they also leered at the whores, eager to bed them, thinking we had brought them back as a reward for them. As much as I cared about my crew, I had no desire for these four women to be subjected to such a treatment. They had already been through too much… I forbade the crew from harming or abusing them. The men grumbled, argued and complained, but I silenced them with a grim stare. Clearly, none of them was brave enough to risk my wrath. Even Lagaan and Ulfgar were unhappy, perhaps considering the four women as part of our spoils of war, but for once, Raguhl supported my decision.

I did, however, give strict instructions for the five people we had rescued to be placed under guard. The charm and drugs would wear off in time, and once they regained their wits, I wanted to make sure these people did not take advantage of our charity. They were scum from Scuttlecove, after all, so I did not have high hopes that they would be trustworthy, or even grateful. But it was worth a try. And who knows, perhaps once they came back to their senses, the women would willingly serve as whores aboard our ship in exchange for protection or a safe passage out of this hellhole. I would respect their decision. Having lived such a miserable life in my early years, I knew quite well how desperate some women were – unfortunate souls born into poverty, with no hopes and no prospects. But I wanted to at least give them the choice to pick their own destiny from this point on.

We spent a few hours on board. I made sure that Brissa and Harliss had everything they needed to begin recovering from their ordeal. I also spoke briefly with Avner. He still conducted himself with quiet dignity. He seemed like a completely different man, and although I greatly appreciated the change, I in fact still feared that this was some sort of villain that had taken the nobleman’s appearance to infiltrate our ship. However, I performed a few magical tests, and they all proved that this was in fact the real Avner. Most strange indeed…

I spent some time tending to the whores we had rescued. Raguhl joined me in one of the rooms and quietly watched me as I worked.

“This is very kind of you, Belessa,” he said after a while. “I just wish we could’ve rescued the other slaves of the harpies that Ulfgar killed during the battle.”

“Yes, that was rather gratuitous of him to kill those poor sods, wasn’t it?” I replied.

Raguhl nodded.

“Perhaps I’m not the only one in this group who’s shrouded in darkness,” I said bitterly, referring to last night’s argument.

“No,” replied the barbarian simply. After a pause, he asked: “Have you reconsidered finishing Kaskus’s healing?”

I gazed into the distance, avoiding Raguhl’s eyes. I hadn’t even gone to check on the dwarf today. I guess I’d had other concerns on my mind. “I haven’t made my decision yet. It’s true that with his tongue, he would be in a better position to tell us about Moretta’s whereabouts.” I paused for a moment, hesitating, but I finally conceded: “I thought a lot about what you said to me last night. You are wise, Raguhl. If I don’t harm Moretta and Tolin, I will really show them what fools they have been all along.”

The lizardman nodded. “Yes. That is the most peaceful solution for all… And through it, you can hope to count Moretta among your friends as you once did.”

“I was just wondering something, Raguhl. You’ve lived among humans for many years now, haven’t you? How has that been for you? Were you sometimes treated as a monster?”

“Yes,” he replied after a short pause. “Some people were afraid of me, in Sasserine.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Sad,” he replied. “And angry, sometimes. They only judged me because of my appearance, not my actions. They were guided by fear.”

“Well, I often feel the same way. I am treated like a monster too, in a way, because of my beliefs.”

Understanding dawned over Raguhl’s face.

“But have I not done a lot of good over the years?” I continued. “Do you see how Moretta and Tolin’s reaction made me feel? Can you understand how deeply it hurt me?”

The lizardman watched me in silence for a long time. I was not sure what his reaction would be. Then, he said: “You are also wise, Belessa. I had not thought of it this way. They were also guided by fear.”

“Yes. I showed many times how much I loved Moretta, how much I cared about her and wanted to protect her. Even though I did not like Tolin, I respected her decision to marry him.”

“Tolin is a fool,” replied Raguhl, and I was pleased to hear a tone of anger in his voice. “He has long lusted after Lavinia, but he is not worthy of her. I do not like him either. You are right, Moretta should not have listened to him. She should have trusted you.”

I nodded.

“Romance is so complicated among you humans,” continued the lizardman with what I interpreted as a smirk on his bestial face. “I don’t understand most of it. Things are much simpler among my kind.”

“How so?”

“Hmm. It’s hard to explain. I was only a child when I left the island… and when I came back, I was a fully-grown warrior… and I became their king. Hmm… I guess I’m not a good example. Of course, now, the women in my tribe seek to be my mate. I have it easy.”

I chuckled. “And for that, you are truly blessed, my dear.”

“Hmm. But what about you, Belessa? Why did you choose Lord Meravanchi as your mate?”

“Why do you think?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I can think of several reasons, but I don’t know if any of them make sense. As I said, romance among humans is a mystery to me. Lord Meravanchi is a lot older than you, I think, and from what I heard, you are a beautiful human woman; many men consider you to be desirable for mating.”

I laughed again and the lizardman’s lack of subtlety. “Thank you, I think. Well, Manthalay is a very charming man. It’s true that he’s older than me, but he’s still far more handsome than most men half his age. He’s smart, and of course, he’s wealthy. He’s someone that matters. But most of all, he respects me. That counts for a lot. Most people either hate me or fear me. But he’s one of the rare ones who actually appreciate me.”

“That makes sense,” he replied. “Thank you for clearing that up.”

Of course, a deeper analysis of my personality might have pointed out that I had grown up without knowing my father, and that I had previously taken another father-figure, my mentor Stalman Klim, as my lover. But I felt I had shared enough with my reptilian comrade for now. We had other things to do.

The Skindancers

The rest of the day was not terribly productive. Even though we had now freed Harliss and Brissa (a major achievement as far as I was concerned!), we still had much to do in this stinking town. Even the simple act of prioritizing these various actions was daunting. We discussed assaulting the Seventh Coil base at the Minting House, but decided that it had lower priority than some other tasks. Alas, we would later pay a heavy price for that.

And so we wasted some time visiting the temple of Talos (where I was hoping to learn about the fate of Umberlee’s cult in here), only to find the clergy busy performing a storm ceremony. We had no wish to interrupt these maniacs in the middle of their worship. We then made our way to the monastery of Dire Hunger, only to be turned away because we did not have an appointment.

Our next stop was the Skindancer Academy, where we hoped to find information regarding Tyria’s whereabouts. Once again, we were asked if we had an appointment. We couldn’t help but laugh at this ludicrous situation, and as Lagaan pointed out, we could scarcely believe there was such an amount of bureaucracy in this pirate city.

With a little bit of convincing, the receptionist agreed to bring us to her mistress. Like most of the performers in that bard college, she was a halfling. As we walked those halls, though, we saw a few members of other races, most of them humans, but also a bugbear and a naked elven woman whose skin was covered with scars. I made conversation with our little host as we walked the sumptuously-decorated halls. This was truly a magnificent place, but Lagaan and Sparkie, who walked at the back of the group, told us through the telepathic bond that they’d heard the sounds of muffled screams and moans behind a door, as if someone were being tortured. There was definitely an aura of unseen menace about that place…

We were eventually led into the office of the mistress of the academy, a middle-aged but still quite attractive halfling woman named Peryoil Whistlecut. She welcomed us warmly, and was quite charming and helpful on the outside, but as we talked with her, I got the distinct impression that there was something quite disturbing about her. Behind those glittering childlike eyes, I caught a few hints of a sick and violent mind. What’s more, Lagaan later told us he had noticed that her forearms were covered in tiny scars.

Peryoil indeed knew Tyria, who had come to the academy to learn the unusual methods taught there. In order to prove herself, our former companion was told she had to succeed at some difficult challenges, and she had been sent into the ruins of the Ur-Priests’ palace to recover a two-bladed red dagger. Alas, she had never returned.

This did not bode well for out little companion. The ruins were rumored to be quite dangerous, so I feared that by herself, she had likely run into more danger than she could handle. Oh, foolish little Tyria, why didn’t you stay with us?

As we walked back toward the Sea Wyvern, we discussed Tyria’s most likely grim fate; most likely, we would find her tiny little corpse lying somewhere on the cold, dusty floor of that sinister fortress. Only Ulfgar was cheerful at this turn of events: we finally had a reason to venture into those ruins, where the promise of treasure awaited us.

By that time, Harliss had returned to Red Foam Whaling with a few members of the Protectorate to try and locate her papers. We warned them about the gory contents of the place, but they still decided to go without us. According to Harliss, it would take a few days to make sense of them all and locate the Crimson Pirate base for us.

Later that evening, we returned to the Skindancer Academy to watch a show that Peryoil had told us about. Many of Scuttlecove’s “finest” citizens were in attendance, including the dreaded Kedward Bones, who in fact looked much less formidable than his reputation had led us to believe. He was accompanied by an imp and a strange-looking little gnome.

The show itself was at once beautiful and disturbing. The performers danced and sang for our enjoyment, but there was a theme of profound sadness and subtle violence about their art. It seemed like a ceremony to torture in its most beautiful form, and I was left wondering if these bards were in fact worshippers of Loviatar, the goddess of pain. At the climax of the show, one of the dancers, most likely a hapless victim chosen for this purpose, was ritually executed by a thousand cuts within a dizzying dance. Looking at my companions, I saw that Ulfgar enjoyed the bloodshed, but that Raguhl was disgusted and repulsed by it. I found it rather pointless myself: they were causing pain just for the pleasure of causing pain…

Upon our return to the ship, we briefly discussed whether to all sleep within Sparkillo’s magical mansion, or on the ship itself, with a few sentinels. We decided to sleep in the magical space, which was at once more comfortable and safer.

I invited Brissa to share a room with me within the spacious magical palace, for I knew that she would need comforting that night, the first one after her rescue. Indeed, once we were alone in the room, she was able to lower her defenses, and the horrors of the previous days washed over her once again. As I held her in my arms, she sobbed and told me things she had not wanted to reveal in front of the others. Vanthus had not merely beaten her, but he had also tried to rape her. Fortunately, our nemesis had discovered at that point that his powerful undead body had one major limitation: his “fifth limb” remained quite dead and completely limp even in the presence of a beautiful woman like Brissa. There was something amusing about knowing that our dreaded foe suffered of impotence, but it had not been funny for poor Brissa, as it had in fact been that revelation that had caused Vanthus to fly into a terrible rage and to beat my friend senseless.

I hoped that nothing remained in Brissa’s heart of the love she had once felt for Vanthus. Even though he had shown that he had never loved her, that he had been using her from the start, the heart can be a fickle thing, and I hoped that my friend did not have any lingering feelings for this monstrous abomination.

Brissa also told me that she had seen Dolmord in a separate room. He had been gagged, and Vanthus had gone to see him regularly. I felt a heavy weight upon my heart when I heard this: what plan did the villain have for my beloved?

Would he try to turn him into a monster, like he was planning to do to Lavinia?

Was I already too late?

I grimly thought about the future, and steeled myself. I had to be ready to do what needed to be done. If my poor Dolmord had been turned into something monstrous, into a twisted mockery of the man I loved, I would have to be ready to do what needed to be done.

Harliss’s story

After she was betrayed by Vanthus and the Crimson Pirates in Kraken’s Cove about a year and a half ago, Harliss sailed back to Scuttlecove to learn more about the menace of the Shadow Pearls and to try to get even with her enemies. During her investigation, she was able to roughly determine the location of the Crimson Pirate base. However, in order to finish her calculations, she would need to recover some papers she had left at Red Foam Whaling. She had been stationed there over the past few weeks, as she had joined the Protectorate recently.

Always on the lookout for rumors, Harliss had learned that the fearsome Crimson Pirates had suffered a decisive and humiliating loss when they had tried to raid a distant village called Farshore. She also learned that a group of adventurers called Trouble had played a pivotal role in the town’s defense. She recognized the name, and decided to try and contact us. She obtained an audience with Tyralandi thanks to the note Zimon had written for her. The mistress of Porphyry House then cast the Dream spell that had reached me a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, as we already knew, Red Foam Whaling was attacked by the assassins of the Seventh Coil while we were on the way to Scuttlecove. The Yuan-Ti infiltrated the place with skill and magic, easily slaughtering Harliss’s allies. Harliss herself was captured and tortured by the foul snake-men. She claimed to have resisted their torture valiantly, which explained why they had sent her for more thorough questioning here, in the Crooked Spire. Here, too, she had stoically resisted the harpies’ torture. Then, two days ago, another prisoner – Brissa – had been brought in for questioning. Hoping for a more cooperative victim, the wicked harpies had beaten Harliss into unconsciousness, and she had remained in that state since then, until we had saved her.

During her investigation on the Crimson Pirates, Harliss had also discovered the location of one of the bases of the Seventh Coil: it was in an abandoned building that served as a minting house, near the temple of Talos in the northwest part of town.

Brissa’s story

Brissa then told us about Vanthus’s attack on Farshore, but we already knew most of what had happened. We gave her our version as well.

She had later woken up aboard a docked ship. She was being kept in a dark and stinky cell, but somehow, she figured out that she was being kept in the Crimson Pirate base. Among his three pretty victims, she was the first one that Vanthus visited. Understandably, he was surprised that she was actually still alive: in the bastard’s mind, she had perished long ago in Kraken’s Cove, along with the other mutated victims of the broken Shadow Pearl.

Despite Vanthus’s horrific new nature and his powerful mind-controlling abilities, Brissa somehow resisted his questioning. This of course infuriated the villain, who beat her mercilessly.

I was gripped by a powerful tension as I listened to my friend telling me this terrible tale of suffering. Even though she is a strong-willed woman, Brissa was trembling as she related the events of these past few weeks. It had clearly taken her to the edge. I was filled with even more rage toward Vanthus, that accursed Abyss-spawned monster. He had caused so much harm to us, to all of us! I felt a sense of hopelessness as well, for we had already slain him, but that had proved futile in the end. How were we ever going to stop him?

We had to figure out a way. We could not allow him to go on spreading his corrupting evil throughout the world. He had to be punished for what he had done. And this time, we needed to be thorough. He needed to be so utterly destroyed that even Demogorgon, with all his power, would be forever unable to bring him back.

When my sweet Brissa had woken up from the thrashing that Vanthus had inflicted, she had heard him muttering to himself like a madman. He was clearly obsessed in a disturbing way by his sister Lavinia. His ‘love’ for her was not at all brotherly: he lusted after her.

It seemed that Vanthus now wanted to turn his sister into a demonic monstrosity like him. He believed that by going to Lemoriax, the capital of Gaping Maw, he would be able to transform her like this.

I looked into the eyes of my companions, and they all realized the grim implications. Lavinia might suffer the greatest torment of all: her very soul could be corrupted, and she would forever become a fiend like her brother. If that were to happen, we would likely be forced to slay her, to end her misery, and to prevent her from furthering Demogorgon’s apocalyptic schemes as well.

Of course, none were more pained by this turn of events than Raguhl. He had feared for Lavinia’s life, but now, he realized that he had something even worse to worry about.

From what Brissa told us, it seemed that Vanthus was now in charge of the Crimson Fleet. Such is the power of the Death Knight. In addition to the pirates and demons, he now commanded a host of shadows, creatures of pure negative energy that were drawn to him like moths to a flame of utter blackness.

Yet it seemed that even the mighty Death Knight was afraid. He worried that those who had bested him in the past would be able to slay him once again. He knew that Trouble presented a great threat to him. And for this, he had sent Brissa to the harpies, for her to be questioned into revealing our weaknesses.

Nightal 28th, 1376 (continued)

Silencing the singers

The harpies didn’t end up causing us any actual harm, but their magical songs had the potential to confuse, control and hinder us greatly. Thankfully, the protective spells I had woven around the group provided a good defense. Two of the harpies remained up among the rafters of the tower; the third one flew down toward us, trying to harm us with her song, but she was soon slain by arrows shot from Raguhl’s new giant bow, some from Lagaan’s Nimbus Bow, and Sparkillo’s deadly magic. While this was happening, I cast an Air Walk spell on Ulfgar so he could attack the other two. Small black clouds formed under the soles of his boots, as if the storm magic of Umberlee herself were lifting him above ground. Before he began his ascension toward the other two harpies, though, he mercilessly slaughtered two of the tower’s servants, harmless thralls who were no doubt controlled by the harpies into attacking us. Their bodies exploded into a sickening shower of blood as they were cut down by the dwarven waraxe.

Sparkillo had noticed, just as I had, that two human-sized shapes seemed to be kept within the crystal cage high above us, and he refrained from using any overly destructive spells that could have endangered their lives.

One of the surviving harpies whistled sharply, and a blue dragon suddenly emerged from one of the rooms, squeezing through its opening. It seemed like an impressive foe at first, but I soon realized that it was but an illusion. I communicated this to my allies through our mental link, and then cast a Silence spell around the harpies to prevent them from using their songs or magic. The two bird-women tried to flee through a trap door in the ceiling, but one of them was slain by Sparkillo’s Magic Missiles before she could escape. The other hurried outside, with Ulfgar, who had climbed up by then, following her closely.

Another charmed slave dressed in leather and peacock feathers uselessly attacked Raguhl with a wine bottle, but I quickly knocked him out with the shaft of my trident. Unlike Ulfgar, I saw no need to slay these unfortunate people.

Lagaan showed his great archery skills by shooting the last fleeing harpy through the small opening high overhead, but before we could congratulate him, we were viciously attacked from behind. It seemed that two more assassins of the Seventh Coil had followed us through the streets of Scuttlecove, under the cover of invisibility. Sparkillo had somehow failed to notice them despite his magically enhanced sight, and the two snake-men now appeared behind us. One of their arrows narrowly missed piercing my neck, bouncing off of my armor’s shoulder plate instead, but a second arrow penetrated the side of my torso. The pain was excruciating, but I was still able to act – for now.

At my side, Sparkillo also cried from pain, as three arrows lodged themselves into his body. By some luck of the gods, the elven wizard survived, much to the consternation of the assassins – they had been sure their arrows had pierced his heart.

(OOC: In fact, it did, Sparkillo failed his saving throw against the death attack. He used an action point to make his save.)

I immediately cast a Slay Living spell at one of our assailants, but somehow, I missed him. Raguhl and Lagaan drew their blades and attacked the closest Yuan-Ti, but then the other one threw a Bead of Force at our feet, and once again, we were blasted by the explosion of pure energy. I managed to dodge the worst of it, but once again, I was pushed back behind it. I was stuck on the other side of the shimmering globe, away from all of my companions! Aaarrrghhh!!

Raguhl and Sparkillo had gotten caught inside the sphere, which left only the unlucky Lagaan to face off both assassins. I desperately tried to dispel the barrier, as it was completely blocking the door leading to the entrance hall where Lagaan was fighting, but my spell failed just as it had at Red Foam Whaling. I must study these beads and figure out how to counter them more properly.

Fortunately, Sparkillo regained his senses despite the pain, and quickly used his magical powers to shift himself and Raguhl outside the force sphere – and right next to the assassins, to help Lagaan. Even through the impenetrable sphere, I heard Raguhl’s terrible berserker roar. He swung his enormous sword in wide arcs as he unleashed his anger upon the cowardly assassins. The attack was so swift and brutal that the Yuan-Ti were unable to escape it, even by magic: they were soon reduced to bloody carcasses on the floor of the Crooked Tower’s entrance hall.

The rescue

All of our enemies were now dead. Even the unfortunate slave I had knocked out earlier had been slain by the explosion of the Bead of Force. Through the mental link, Ulfgar told us that he had been able to slay the last harpy. He was now chatting with ‘a big horned demon-creature’, which based on his description, we identified as a Horned Devil: one of the most fearsome denizens of Hell. Thankfully, the outsider had no quarrel with us; it had merely wandered nearby out of curiosity, attracted by the sounds of violence.

I healed our wounds while we searched the enemies. They had several potent magical items, chief among which were some rings of protection that Lagaan, Sparkillo and I took. I also grabbed the Bead of Force that remained on the corpse of one of the assassins. It might come in handy some day.

We then began our ascension toward the crystal cage. The dragon illusion had, of course, disappeared. We opened some doors along the way, and in four of the brothel’s rooms, we found some young women lying naked on some beds, waiting for customers in a drug- and magic-induced daze. Further up, we finally reached the crystal cage. Lagaan picked the lock, and we entered. It was surprisingly filthy within. This had surely been the harpies’ nest, but I did not pay much attention to these surroundings, for my heart was beating madly in my chest when I saw the two forms of the prisoners. Both were badly tortured women. One of them, as we had hoped, was Harliss, and the other one, through an incredible stroke of luck, was Brissa!

I was careful at first, fearing another succubus-trick, but no, it seemed to really be my friend!

While I approached the two victims, Brissa, who was barely conscious, feebly looked in my direction and whispered my name. The poor thing, I will never forget the mixture of abject misery and glorious relief that I saw in her eyes at that moment! While I busied myself with healing the two women, my companions found a strange creature in a small cage in a corner. It was most disturbing in appearance, as if a baby had somehow been infected with ghoul fever. Lagaan and Ulfgar tried to interact with it, but it seemed hostile. It claimed it had written some texts on the countless scraps of parchments that littered the filthy floor. Seeing that the monster could not be reasoned with, Lagaan slew it with his mighty Sunblade.

The terrible wounds that Harliss and Brissa had suffered from the Sisters of Lamentation slowly closed as the power of my regenerative magic washed over their bodies. Raguhl gently took care of Harliss while I hugged Brissa against me, kissing her forehead and whispering to her that she was safe. I felt her sobbing softly against me.

Even though she had been more badly wounded, Harliss recovered more quickly than Brissa and wasted no time launching into a series of obscene curses worthy of one who has sailed troublesome seas for many years. She clearly felt a mixture of hatred for her captors and shame at having been bested by them. Nevertheless, she was now safe, and she fully realized that she owed us her life. We were clearly not the bumbling neophytes she had run into in Kraken’s Cove anymore: we were true heroes.

We led the two women into one of the brothel’s bedrooms, where we helped them wash themselves, and gave them some water to sate their thirst. We gave Harliss her equipment back, and we told both of them how and why we had come here, and we also asked them our many questions. They told us their sad stories; as an artist, Brissa’s was charged with dark emotions, while Harliss the pirate captain cursed with every other word, as she seethed with fury toward the Crimson Pirates who had caused her so much harm.

What a coincidence it was, I later realized, that Harliss and Brissa, whom we had both met in Kraken’s Cove, very close to one another, had once again been reunited in this place, after taking so vastly different paths to get there.

Nightal 28th, 1376

The Bird Cage

I awoke the next morning with my throat intact, which meant it bore only the old scar left years ago by my decapitation. I groaned: what a terrible thought to start my day…

The ship hadn’t been attacked during the night. After praying to Umberlee, I met the men inside the mansion, where I summoned a Heroes’ Feast. We discussed what we had to do and what we had learned so far. There were so many different ways we could go. But among all of our allies who were in danger, Harliss was the only one we had an idea where to find. So even though I would’ve preferred to favour rescuing Brissa or Tyria, we decided to go to the Bird Cage as we had discussed yesterday.

Raguhl approached me about healing Kaskus, but I fixed him with such a withering glare that he withdrew in silence: it was still too early in the day to talk about that scumbag.

Heavy rain poured from a morose gray sky over Scuttlecove. Along the way toward the Crooked Tower, Lagaan stopped at a merchant shop to buy some cold iron arrows. We waited outside for a few minutes while the owner, a paranoid bearded man, only let the thief inside.

Soon after, we reached the Bird Cage: it was a small gray tower decorated with flags and carvings of dagger-wielding harpies. I suggested to my companions to remain discreet and penetrate the tower through magical subterfuge, but as usual, the men simply shrugged and decided to open the main door, like the simple brutes that they are. I sighed and followed them inside. The entrance hallway was lavishly decorated, indicating that this brothel must’ve been very successful. The furniture here was of top quality, the walls were decorated with scenes of a sexual nature. They showed some pretty perverted stuff: naughty, naughty little harpies!

We were greeted by a man who was slouched behind a table in a corner. He looked either drugged, or charmed, or both. He offered us some wine and asked if we had an appointment. Lagaan helped himself to a drink, confident that our magical protections would prevent him from being harmed by it.

“We don’t have an appointment, but we would like to meet the mistresses of this place about a matter of some urgency,” I told the receptionist.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he replied lethargically. “Would you like to take an appointment and come back later?”

“Can we do this my way?” asked Ulfgar through the mental link.

“Yes, I suggest we do this ‘the Ulfgar way’”, said Sparkillo.

Before we began the pummelling session, I cast some protective spells over the entire group, guessing that the harpies we were likely to fight in there would try and control our minds. Once that was done, Sparkillo opened the far door with a spell. We left the entrance, heedless of the receptionist’s feeble protests. We were now inside the tower, which consisted mostly of a huge room that spanned over many floors: the structure was mostly hollow, with a few side rooms and balconies above. In the middle of the tower, a huge cage of metal and crystal was hanging from a network of beams above.

A handful of slaves looked around, surprised by our arrival. They were all attractive men and women who had been dressed in embarrassing costumes of leather and peacock feathers. They seemed to be wondering whether we’d come here looking for entertainment or bloodshed. Above us all, three harpies were hovering near the cage. They clearly understood our intentions, for they dove toward us with piercing shrieks!

A runt without a tongue

We all made our way back to the Rusty Shunt. Kaskus had been placed on a bed in the central shrine. He was in terrible shape, even after the other priest had used his magic to heal him. He had truly been at death’s door when we had saved him. Sparkillo and Ulfgar were elsewhere in the basement, talking with some members of the Protectorate, but Lagaan, Raguhl and I had come to check up on the Jade Ravens’ druid. The priest of Gwynharwyf was also with us.

Raguhl caressed Kaskus’s filthy hair with a rough clawed hand. The sight of the tortured dwarf made him wince. “Is there nothing else you can do, brother?” he asked, but the priest of Gwynharwyf shook his head. Raguhl then closed his eyes, and reluctantly turned toward me. “What about you, Belessa, can you provide additional healing for Kaskus?”

I did not answer right away. I felt no compassion for that miserable cur Kaskus. In my mind, he had gotten just what he deserved. It was just a pity that it was someone else who had been fortunate enough to perform the actual torture. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late for me to give a similar treatment to Tolin. But still, I wanted him to tell me how to find Moretta and Tolin, and I knew that the others would nag me to death if I didn’t heal him. I reluctantly approached him and placed my hands on his chest. I spoke the words of a powerful prayer and released divine healing energy within his body. The nearby Altar of Gwynharwyf shook from the potency of Umberlee’s magic being channelled in its vicinity.

“What dark magic is this?” asked the priest, outraged.

“You have just witnessed the power of a TRUE goddess, fool!” I snapped back. “I am the hierophant of Umberlee, the Mistress of Storms and Queen of the Deeps. My help was requested, and I provided it with my goddess’s blessing. Be thankful that I deigned to perform such a miracle in your dingy little shrine!”

Kaskus coughed and opened his eyes. It was clear that his body had been healed greatly.

“Thank you for this, Belessa,” said Raguhl. “Kaskus, you’re safe now. We rescued you. Are you all right?”

The dwarf blinked dazedly for a few moments before his gaze focused on Raguhl’s monstrous head. He then looked at each of us in turn. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Lagaan.

“His tongue hasn’t grown back!” said Raguhl in a horrified tone.

“How come it didn’t grow back, Belessa?”

“Because that requires an even more powerful spell,” I replied.

“Are you able to do it?”

“Of course I am, I used such a spell to regenerate Brissa’s eye, after all. But it seems that the healing powers of Umberlee are not appreciated here,” I said, glaring at the priest of the Whirling Fury. Indeed, I felt that this place was hallowed in the name of that celestial power, and I actually felt some resistance when channelling Umberlee’s magic in this location.

“I appreciate what you’re doing,” replied the cleric reluctantly, “but I would ask you to please cast your spells in a different location.”

I nodded. “Well, I’ll have to think about it. Do you have some parchment, brother? Let’s see if Kaskus can answer a few simple questions to prove that he’s worthy of such powerful magic.”

Everyone stared at me, but the priest went to fetch some sheets of parchment, as well as a quill and ink from a nearby desk. He placed them in Kaskus’s lap.

“What happened to you, Kaskus?” I asked. “How were you captured?”

He stared at me and did not respond, nor did he write anything down. He still seemed quite weak, and I believed that his mind had been broken in addition to his body. Perhaps it had been done by magic. But my spell had taken care of the worst of it.

“Where are Moretta and Tolin?” I continued. “Were they captured too?”

He slowly and clumsily wrote down a few words. I looked down and saw that he had written: ‘I don’t know.’

“I hope you’re not just writing that because you don’t trust me, Kaskus. I would be very disappointed if it were the case.”

The dwarven druid glowered at me, then underlined: ‘I don’t know.’

“I see. Well, here’s how it is, Kaskus. As far as I know, I’m the only priestess you know who can restore your tongue. Unless you want to remain mute for a long, long time, I suggest you work a little bit harder to please me. Right now, I’m not particularly fond of you, since you helped that worm Tolin to betray me, and you put my dear Moretta’s life in danger.”

The dwarf wrote down something lengthier this time. I saw that he had written, in crude letters: “I helped tolin because he is my friend. I always help my friends.”

I chuckled dryly. “So do I, actually. Too bad you’re not one of them.” I walked over to the desk and fetched more sheets of parchment, which I then placed on his lap. “You’re going to need these, I’m afraid, because it seems it’ll be a while since you regain your tongue. Why don’t you meditate on your situation, and we’ll discuss again tomorrow and see if you’re feeling more diplomatic?”

Before Lagaan and Raguhl could beg on behalf of the miserable runt, I walked out of the room.

I joined Ulfgar and Sparkillo, who were still talking with members of the Protectorate. Sparkillo was clearly upset by Alyssa’s death, not only because of the loss of life itself, but also because he would’ve liked to question her about Porphyry House. He felt that eventually, we would need to go there, and could use all the preparation and knowledge we could get.

I agreed with him and decided to interrogate Alyssa’s spirit by necromancy. Before doing so, I made sure that our hosts did not object, but since we were not in the shrine itself anymore, I was allowed to perform my ceremony. Before I began, I washed the unfortunate girl’s face with a damp cloth. She had in fact been quite pretty underneath the grime. It was truly regrettable that things had come to this. I wasn’t sure of the specifics of her existence, but if I recalled correctly, the rumours said that she and her brother had left the comfort of their sumptuous manor in Sasserine for a life of adventure. Things had clearly gone horribly, horribly wrong along the way, and I could only imagine the nightmarish mistreatments the pretty young thing had endured at the hands of Porphyry House’s perverted customers.

I had taken no pleasure in killing poor Alyssa. It had strictly been about politics. At least, I could safely assume that she was now in a better place.

Unfortunately, Alyssa’s soul proved much less helpful than Sparkillo had hoped. She had little useful information about Porphyry House. She had no knowledge of Tyralandi’s allies, powers, or of a secret entrance to the building. She did confirm that some of the customers had been Crimson Pirates, and she also said that Tyralandi was extremely well-informed. She quite likely knew how to get inside the Crimson Pirate base. However, in order to gain that information, Alyssa said that one of us would need to ‘please’ Tyralandi. I shared a grin with Ulfgar. It was quite obvious what kind of ‘pleasing’ she was talking about. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure there was anyone in our group that would be particularly qualified to please a half-nymph, half-succubus brothel owner of otherworldly beauty. Raguhl was a monster, Ulfgar was a dwarf, Lagaan and Sparkillo didn’t have an ounce of charm between the two of them, and although I was of course the most charismatic member of the group by far, I was at an anatomical disadvantage when it came to ‘pleasing’ women.

Shortly after that, Lagaan and Raguhl joined us. Kaskus had fallen asleep again, and had apparently not said much after I’d left. It seemed he was still quite exhausted, despite the magical healing. Raguhl asked me if I would come back tomorrow to restore him more fully, and I said I might, if I was so inclined. The lizardman seemed on the verge of starting an argument for a moment, but wisely decided to let it drop.

Before we left, Sparkillo cast a Magnificent Mansion in the Protectorate basement, to act as a shelter in case of an attack by members of the Seventh Coil.

The Sea Wyvern’s defenders

I wanted to go to the Bird Cage that night to try and free Harliss. Assuming she wasn’t already dead, then her life must surely be in great danger. Unfortunately, except for Raguhl, the others whined that they were tired and that Sparkillo had used many of his spells; they wanted to rest for the night before attempting to free the pirate captain. Clearly, they were not as worried about her well-being as I was. After a few minutes of pointless arguing, I gave up and decided to let these delicate flowers have their beauty sleep.

Once we reached the Sea Wyvern, even though it was dark, we could see signs of damage on the beautiful ship. A few crew members came to greet us as we climbed back on board, and told us that another group of ruffians had mounted an attack against the ship; thankfully, they had been repelled. Raguhl growled in frustration: clearly, he would’ve liked to be there and punish the assailants himself. I congratulated our men on a job well done, and applied my healing magic to each one in turn.

One of the last ones I treated was Stragdar: the stubborn dwarf endured pain better than our human crew members. He mentioned that even Avner had helped in the fight. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard this. When I finally found the nobleman, I saw that one of his arms was wounded. I told him that I was proud of him for helping to defend the Sea Wyvern, and he replied with quiet humility. He had radically changed: could Ulfgar and Lagaan have really made a man out of him? Or was this some wicked shape-shifter that had taken Avner’s place?

Avner turned down my offer of healing: perhaps the pain in his arm helped to make him feel more like the warrior he was becoming. Assuming it was the case, I was very happy with this turn of events. I was already starting to consider that Avner could become someone I would one day be proud to count among my relatives.

We decided to sleep on the ship itself rather than in Sparkillo’s mansion, for we wanted to hear if it got attacked again. Lagaan and Ulfgar had gone to bed already, but Sparkillo and Raguhl remained with me as I tried to contact Harliss by magic. Alas, after several minutes of casting, I received no answer. This did not bode well. With a heavy sigh, Sparkillo bade us a good night and went to bed as well.

“I’m worried about Harliss,” said Raguhl. “Perhaps they’ve already killed her.”

“I’m worried too,” I replied. “About her and about many others too.”

“Like Moretta?”

I remained silent for a few moments. “Yes,” I finally said.

“What do you plan on doing if we find her, her child, and Tolin?”

I smirked at the lizardman. “What do you think?”

“I often have trouble guessing what goes on behind those dark eyes of yours.”

I chuckled. “It seems a lot of people do. Even those who are the closest to me; those I have confided in. Like Moretta…”

“Do you want to punish her?”

“Of course I do! But I don’t know if I will. What I feel for her is more pity and disgust than hate.”

“Because she left?”

“Yes.”

“It was her choice to do so… She did not hurt you.”

“Yes she did!” I hissed. “She was my friend! She was like the sister I never had! But she let that OAF Tolin twist her mind! She listened to his hateful lies! But worst of all… worst of all she believed I could actually harm her child! To realize that Moretta, who I trusted with my very life, could ever imagine that I would be capable of doing something so monstrous… is beyond my comprehension.”

“She made a mistake… If she is truly your sister, you should forgive her.”

“Forgive her? Forgive her!? That, my dear Raguhl, is much easier said than done.”

“If you love her as you claim, that’s your chance to show it.”

I glared at him. As usual, Raguhl refused to acknowledge my pain, and defended the one who had hurt me. He was clearly deluding himself if he thought that I could so simply forgive Moretta for what she had done.

“That’s what you would want, isn’t it?” I said after a while. “That’s what you would all want, you, Lagaan, Lavinia, Kaskus, all of you who helped the two little love birds to escape the claws of the evil Belessa, who loves to sacrifice other people’s babies for no particular reason…”

“We don’t really think like that, but…”

“But what!?!?”

“Well, you can’t blame us for not trusting you. We realize that you’re very powerful, and we appreciate your presence… and we respect your faith… but we disagree with some of your choices, which are tainted by darkness. I speak plainly to you, Belessa, out of respect for you. You are my companion, and even, my friend. I wish only to help you, but I cannot do so if you insist on remaining shrouded in darkness.”

“Well, Raguhl, this matter is in fact between Moretta and me. You can’t understand how I feel because you don’t have all the information at hand. And I don’t have time to listen to your fancy speech about evil and darkness. Save it for another night, because I’m too tired right now. Good night.”

I retired to my room before the dumb barbarian could launch into another one of his boring tirades. Nevertheless, I was so upset about the whole Moretta situation that it took me a while to fall asleep… especially since every little noise made me wonder if a team of cutthroats were trying to infiltrate the Sea Wyvern.

The Hanging Plaza

We made our way in pairs through the dimly lit streets of Scuttlecove, heading toward the Hanging Plaza at the center of town. Sparkie and the little thief walked in front. Some distance behind them came Ulfgar and Lagaan, who were in turn followed by Raguhl and myself. By traveling in smaller groups like this, we hoped to attract less attention.

Along the way, Ulfgar told us through the mental link about his meeting with the other group of adventurers. Their leader was a massive human warrior armed with gigantic sword. The others were a bald priest of Shaundakul, the god of travelers; a mysterious woman dressed in hooded robes; and a dwarven rogue armed with many knives. They had apparently started exploring the ruins of the Ur-Priests’ palace two days ago. Within, they had fought golems and traps of mechanical and magical nature. Apparently, they were being paid by several inhabitants of the city to fetch valuable items from the palace.

Ulfgar’s greed had been awoken by the other group’s tales of adventure, and he tried to convince us to go to the ruins and find our own share of treasure. Clearly, the dwarf was callously ignoring the plight that had befallen Tyria, Harliss, Lavinia, Brissa and Liamae. Thankfully, the rest of the group backed me up in convincing the mercenary that rescuing our missing friends was our top priority. He grumbled a few curses in dwarven, and then the telepathic bond went quiet for a while.

“So you’re part of this cult, then?” I asked Raguhl.

The lizardman looked at me sideways. He was clearly wary, and only grunted a vague acknowledgement.

“But how did you join it? You’ve never been in Scuttlecove before, have you?”

“No… There was a temple back in Sasserine.”

“Who are you worshipping? I didn’t recognize that idol in the shrine.”

Again, Raguhl remained silent for a few moments, but he finally replied: “She is Gwynharwyf, the Whirling Fury. She is a great slayer of demons.”

It made sense. I knew the lizardman felt a special hatred for demons, more than any of us in the group. He had even trained with the savage Jakara to learn special ways of fighting them. “I see. Well, she sounds like a good mistress to have when fighting the minions of Demogorgon.”

Raguhl nodded, but said no more.

Finally, we arrived at the plaza. Thick stone pillars supported a structure of wooden beams which forming several concentric circles. Attached to the beams were spikes, hooked chains and iron cages that contained some prisoners. A crowd of thugs and sadists had gathered at this late hour to torment these unfortunate wretches. I immediately sensed that Raguhl tensed at this unpleasant spectacle, and I began speaking to him softly, trying to calm him down. It would do us no good at all if he foolishly tried to free any of these prisoners. Sparkillo had a good chance of making a quick escape thanks to his magic, but Raguhl would have to rely only on his brute strength, which would clearly get him into a lot of trouble.

“Our little friend knows this woman over there,” said Sparkillo through the mental link. I looked where he pointed with his chin. In one of the cages, I saw the shape of a badly abused woman wearing filthy rags. She seemed barely conscious, and yet, a group of dark elves surrounded her cage, throwing rotten fruits at her and cackling at her misfortune.

“Apparently, her name is Alyssa,” added Sparkillo.

“We should save her!” replied Lagaan.

“Is she the one we came here to save?” I asked.

After a brief exchange with his small companion, Sparkillo replied, “No, the one we have to save is over there.”

He was pointing at a short, squat shape who was huddled in another cage.

“That one’s too far…” I said. “You won’t be able to get both. Let’s just free the one we’ve been asked to get and leave before we attract too much attention.”

A brief discussion ensued, as Lagaan wanted to try and save both, but I was able to convince him to reach a compromise: Sparkillo would first save the Protectorate man, teleport to safety, and then come back under another disguise, and save the woman with another teleport spell.

I preferred to keep it is safe, because there were a few monks of the Dire Hunger guarding the place, and we had no idea of their true powers; but I guessed they were quite dangerous. What’s more, the crowd itself seemed nasty, as it included gnolls, a bugbear, a Duergar, and a wicked-looking man with a large wolf.

“Kaskus!” suddenly said Sparkillo.

“What?”

“It’s Kaskus! He’s here in this cage! He’s the one we need to save!”

We were all quite surprised. We had not at all expected the dwarven druid of the Jade Ravens to be a member of the Protectorate. I knew he had been in town for a while, since he had gotten here with Moretta and Tolin… But how had he joined the Protectorate, and why was he now in this predicament? As much as I resented him for aiding the two fugitives, I felt a sense of elation at the prospect that, once freed, he would be able to lead us to Moretta at long last.

With two simple spells, Sparkillo was able to open Kaskus’s cage and to teleport away with him and the little thief. The Dire Monks realized what had happened a few moments later, but it was too late by then. Through the mental link, we heard that a priest at the Protectorate base came to heal Kaskus, but the dwarf had been at the brink of death, and did not regain consciousness even under the healer’s treatment. What’s more, Sparkillo reported that the druid’s tongue had been cut off. He had clearly been tortured quite thoroughly. As I received all of this information, I of course wondered if Moretta, Tolin and their newborn had been made prisoners and had been subjected to such treatments as well…

Sparkillo then decided to return to the Plaza to free Alyssa. The rest of us waited for him here, just in case he should need us. We watched with amused detachment the Dire Hunger monks fume and ask questions of the other visitors of the place. In the mean time, Ulfgar had gotten bored and had wandered toward a merchant’s stall, where rotten tomatoes could be purchased, of course to be used as missiles to be thrown at unfortunate prisoners in the cages.

Through the mental link, Sparkillo relayed to us what he learned about Alyssa from talking to the little thief. She had apparently served as a plaything at Porphyry House, held under magical control by mistress Tyralandi. Some time ago, her brother had tried to rescue her. He had come to the Protectorate to ask them for help in freeing her, but the operation had failed. The brother had survived, but he had not taken the defeat gracefully: he had succumbed to substance addiction and had disappeared into the eastern slums. After about five years of entertaining the villainous clientele of the brothel, it appeared that poor Alyssa had finally been deemed to be “used up” and had been thrown out like garbage. Then, she had seemingly found herself at the Hanging Plaza, condemned to die a slow, painful and humiliating death.

But of much greater concern to me than the poor girl’s tales of woes was her identity. Sparkillo said that her brother had been called Aaron Islaran. That name was of course quite familiar to both of us: Keltar Islaran had been the Harbourmaster of Sasserine until about two years ago, when he had been slain (most likely by his rivals, the Kellanis) at the beginning of our conflict with the Lotus Dragons!

This meant that poor little Alyssa here, and her brother, if he was still alive, were the only remaining heirs of the Islaran family. Although Sparkillo sounded quite excited about this prospect through the telepathic bond, my mind immediately began calculating the repercussions. If this silly girl was returned safe and sound to Sasserine, then she could claim control over the Islarans’ holdings, which were the ones the Meravanchi family (currently under the leadership of Zebula, but hopefully only for a short while still) was trying to wrestle control of. Much of the plans that Manthalay and I had formulated for our future had assumed that we would have control of the Islaran estate.

If we rescued her, the repercussions would gravely limit Manthalay’s political future.

I simply could not allow something like that to happen… She was right there, weak, alone and vulnerable. I might not get another chance to strike. I had to act, now!

I tried to approach Alyssa’s cage nonchalantly and to distract Raguhl’s attention, but the infuriating nitwit kept following me around like an overgrown lapdog. I could not afford for him to see what I was about to do, because I was convinced that he would be enraged by my actions. As usual, he would come to the defence of a complete stranger instead of supporting his long-time adventuring companion.

Thankfully, though, another member of the group came to my help in a most unexpected way: Raguhl’s eyes suddenly went wide with surprise as a rotten tomato struck the back of his head. He immediately turned around, fuming at Ulfgar, who was chuckling stupidly, still under the guise of the seven-foot-tall human warrior of the other adventuring group.

“What the…???” growled Raguhl. “What’s the matter with you, Ulf… I mean… stranger?”

While the lizardman was distracted, I quickly cast a prayer of pain on the captive Alyssa, using my magical rod to make the spell silent. To my satisfaction, I felt her life force being snuffed out like a candle’s flame. Then, I looked back toward Ulfgar just in time to see a round, red projectile hurtling in my direction. Reacting quickly, I grabbed the tomato with a telekinetic wave created by my ring, and sent it right back at its owner, whose face it exploded on.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” he yelled.

Having learned his lesson, Ulfgar selected other victims with his stinking tomatoes. The bugbear and Duergar that he picked on looked like they were going to reach for their weapons for a moment, but then, they hurried to go buy tomatoes from the vendor, and a food fight began.

By that time, Sparkillo and the little thief had returned. While the Dire Hunger monks now dealt with the mayhem of the food fight, the elven wizard easily liberated Alyssa and teleported away with her corpse: it’s only after he reached his destination that he realized that she had already passed away.

Raguhl and I stood to the side and watched the pandemonium as the monks’ fury went up one notch when they realized another prisoner had been freed. His work being done, Ulfgar (his cloak and beard covered with tomato juice) discreetly left the scene. Lagaan, Raguhl and I then did the same, and we all headed back toward the Rusty Shunt.

“Bad news, my friends,” said Sparkillo through the mental link. “It seems we were too late. Poor Alyssa was already dead.”

“Nooo!!” wailed Raguhl.

“According to the priest here, she died due to some vile black magic.” I tensed for a moment as he paused, fearing that I would be accused. But Sparkillo continued with: “It must surely be those accursed dark elves who performed such a despicable act!”