No evil deed goes unrewarded James. That little sidelong reference in Shaktari's writeup in #150 ended up sparking some ideas, and I spent my afternoon today writing up a little response to it. :)
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“It really was unfortunate what they did.” The first of the gathered fiends remarked with a telepathic sigh. “Still, I admire the internal duplicity of that trio when they bargained with their Abyssal counterparts.”
“Internal duplicity or desperation?” The second fiend asked with a barking chuckle.
“Or overconfidence?” The third of their number muttered, disguising the remark with a brief flap of his tattered, rotting wings.
They stood upon the lip of an obsidian well, one of the titular Wells of Darkness that gave the 73rd layer of the Abyss its name. There were three of them: Aliz’fir, an ultroloth of Khin-Oin in service to Mydianchlarus the Oinoloth, Kelzar Ap Nerrin, an arcanaloth of Gehenna in service to Helekanalaith the Keeper of the Tower Arcane, and Xolivrek, one of the lich-like varrangoin anima mages who watched over the layer and its prisoners on behalf of Ahazu the Seizer, the Wells’ original builder and prisoner. Xolivrek was devoted to the imprisoned abyssal lord, yet there he stood with the scions of purist base Evil, conversing with them, walking with them, in league with them.
Xolivrek’s loyalty had been purchased. His pact to Ahazu and with his kindred varrangoin binders, Nardelem, Illynym, and Elvorak, had been rendered meaningless by the price the yugoloths had offered for his aid. They desired freedom for one of the prisoners of Shattered Night, Shaktari, and they required his aid if they were to weaken the Seizer’s grip upon the particular well of their desired prisoner. Without Xolivrek, they could do nothing, and atypically for their kind, they had actually paid him prior to his service.
Using magic the ultroloth had possessed, they’d performed a ritual that stripped the varrangoin of his link to the hungry, covetous maw of Ahazu, which would otherwise have devoured his essence upon the destruction of his physical body. Yet despite severing that link, he’d retained his lich-like status, and the other empowering gifts of the Seizer. Xolivrek knew this because after the ritual, without warning the ‘loths had completely disintegrated him. Several days later after his body reformed, their success was obvious, and they expected him to hold to his side of their bargain. As for the magic itself, Aliz-fir claimed the spell had been devised by and found within one of the spellbooks of Larsdana Ap Neut, first Keeper of the Tower Arcane, Magistrix of the Second Furnace.
The ultroloth and his arcanaloth companion had been pleased, almost ecstatic over the affair, and disturbingly enough, perhaps somewhat surprised at their ritual’s efficacy, as if they’d doubted it before they’d tested its worth. But regardless, they had released Xolivrek from his bonds, but simultaneously allowed him to retain his power. Free of prior obligations, the freedom of the Abyss called to him, and he was suddenly as eager as they were to see to the completion of their task. The fourth member of their group had not been involved, but had watched, leaning heavily upon a crooked staff, its features obscured by a hooded robe. Its only real actions had been when it nodded approvingly at each intonation of their spells, and additionally it had been the one holding the lost arcanaloth lord’s spellbook prior to the ultroloth’s use of its contents.
Xolivrek didn’t know what she was, and the other ‘loths had said nothing to her at any point. Odd as it was, he never pressed the issue even once they’d gathered at the edge of Shaktari’s Well, less than a mile beneath the mountaintop fortress of Overlook where his varrangoin kindred laired and watched over Ahazu’s pool.
The Well itself was pitted as if the glass had been exposed to periodic immersion in some caustic bath of fluids, perhaps a reflection of Vudra, Shaktari’s native layer of the plane. Natural or imposed, colored inclusions and inner fractures traced across and through the glassy rim like veins in a flayed corpse slowly drying under the gray, overcast sky of the 73rd layer of the Abyss.
Looking down at the rim and the darkened circle of the shaft that plunged down into the gloom within its circumference, Xolivrek shuddered at what felt like the brush of fingers upon his shoulders, immaterial fingers of darkness that stirred eddies into the black smoke that leaked from his withered, negative energy empowered husk of a body. The yugoloths were alien to him, alien to the plane itself, but the fourth being that accompanied them was something else altogether.
He turned and glanced warily at that one, black eyes tracking her, but garnering no response. She wasn’t looking at him, nor was she anywhere near to him, though the dim light of the plane cast a long, exaggerated shadow that trailed behind her form. The touch had evidently been his imagination, the wind, or something else equally superfluous.
“I am ready for the invocation.” Xolivrek declared, looking to the pair of yugoloths. “You may begin your ritual.”
The arcanaloth nodded and began slowly circling the well, burning a series of entwined rings and a complex string of glyphs into the stone, performing the magical equivalent of manual labor as the faceless ultroloth watched and gave a look of approval at each step. The other one, the fourth figure, still had said nothing during the process, hadn’t even looked up from where it sat upon the lip of the well, its legs dangling over the side, one of them hanging limp, crippled and useless, staring down into the polluted depths. She wasn’t an ultroloth, which he’d expected, nor an arcanaloth which would have seemed appropriate as well, but rather than a fiend looking out from under the hood of her robe, now blown back by a rising wind, he saw the face of a young aasimar or tiefling girl gazing down into the darkness below.
Xolivrek had no time to consider that incongruity as the other ‘loths began and the air filled with a static hum. Once he looked away -the moment his mind wandered away from her- the girl’s look of placid, tranquil innocence was marred by a brief smirk.
“Rise from the depths of Shattered Night.” Aliz’fir began, his telepathic voice rippling out over the landscape, their minds, and down into the well itself. “Hear our words, know that the border is thin, and know that the time of your release has arrived. Blood, slaughter, and the souls of the baatezu await your fangs and the suffocating embrace of your coils.”
The circle began to glow, and Kelzar answered the unholy liturgical call with response verses of his own. After each secondary verse by the arcanaloth, and before his own intonation, the ultroloth pricked one finger on each hand with a slender silver blade and dribbled the smoking fluid on the runes beneath his feet. They went about their ritual, and as they did so, Xolivrek did his part and spoke the phrases that would weaken the wardings and potentially allow the yugoloths’ magic a chance at succeeding.
Still, it shouldn’t have worked, even with his knowledge of Ahazu’s secrets and the nature of the Wells and Shattered Night alike. It shouldn’t have worked, but as the varrangoin watched, something was clearly happening, and that was also when he noticed that the fourth member of their cabal was speaking to the well, or someone within.
“You will listen Ahazu. Listen to my voice and understand my words.” She said softly with a smile upon her lips. “The devils and their tanar’ri allies of convenience gave you much when they entrapped her here into your embrace, but we desire her returned. You will listen, and you will obey.”
The girl’s voice was pleasant, without malice, its intonation something that didn’t belong in the Abyss, but there was something else, something hidden between the words in the gaps and silence in between that curdled the air and made him sick. She continued and her words descended into a language he’d never heard before except in perhaps corrupted snippets and mumblings on the tongues of archfiends. He’d never heard that language before, but he understood it nonetheless, each and every word, though it burned into his brain like drops of acid to listen.
“That’s right child. That pause. You remember me.” She whispered as the wind picked up and rustled her hair away from her curling, cervidal-like horns. “You remember me child, because you were one of the first of your kind. Not quite as old as Demogorgon, and an infant compared to the obyriths, but you recognize me nonetheless. Think back and remember those first fragmentary memories when you first congealed from out of the Abyss. Remember…”
Her voice, already a whisper was obscured by a sudden rumble in the depths and a rush of wind that rippled the surface of the normally still boundary of the pool below.
“…It is easier that way child.” The girl’s voice faded away with something between a command and a promise drifting and dancing upon her words. She crossed her legs and smiled, tapping her fingers rhythmically, almost playfully upon the wooden staff balanced across her knees.
Light erupted from the depths along with the shifting sound of an approaching storm, the first uncertain and wary moments of labored movement by the long imprisoned Marilith Queen. Wind and light raged from the depths as its metaphysical chains were ripped away and thrown to the side, fully opening the way for the waking Abyssal Lord beyond. Liquid flew up on the currents like acidic rain, wind-blown froth from an ocean of bile, or the very spittle of the beast they had awoken.
The arcanaloth howled in ecstatic triumph, his jaws open wide and fangs exposed to the wind, cackling into the opened Well while beside him the ultroloth’s eyes flickered with a burning array of colors and the air crackled with the hum of a telepathic cry. The yugoloths expressed their emotions, what emotions they possessed, in their own ways unique to their caste, but the other… she turned to glance at Xolivrek, the first time she had done so since they’d prepared the ritual to release Shaktari.
“They don’t know that you’re here.” Xolivrek said, coming to that realization. “You’ve said nothing to them, and they’ve said nothing to you since this began. They’re completely unaware of you.”
The girl smiled and nodded as the light from the depths poured forth, and the hiss of a great uncoiling serpent grew louder and louder. Xolivrek noticed for the first time that her shadow was moving, not with her movements, and not with the raging storm of guttering light rushing forth from the opened Well, but independent as if it were a living thing unto itself. Eyes and mouth visible against the surrounding landscape as it curled about the girl’s ankles and pooled at her feet, it seemed as if it too were smiling.
“You’ve done well child.” Tellura Ibn Shartalan said as she leaned forward upon her shepherd’s staff, suddenly standing only a few feet away from the varrangoin. “You’ve given the yugoloths apparent reason for their success, and your brothers will attest to your betrayal, even if it meant nothing to Shaktari’s freedom. You’ve served your purpose, but like Cabiri before you, you’ve seen too much. However unlike the obyrith lord of observation, you’re of no use to us in the future, nor are you one of mine.”
Xolivrek gasped then as he felt something take hold of him, gripping the core of his essence as if it where a physical thing. Tellura smiled, and beside her, rising up independent of her physical form, her shadow sneered and snarled, a moment before it drove some vital fraction of the varrangoin’s essence into the ground like a spike, tethering him to the spot.
Tellura Ibn Shartalan, the Dire Shepherd, second of The Demented smiled and so did her shadow.
“Shaktari is awake, and when she arrives from the Well, she’ll be hungry you see. The dear child, she’ll be so very hungry…”
Todd, that was great, and brought back some memories of posts I've read of yours over the years. Thanks!
That was simply beautiful. Best thing I have read in a few days by far. Come now Todd, surely you have a baernoloth article or adventure brewing in there somewhere for DRAGON or DUNGEON (unless you can't stomach the transition)?
That was simply beautiful. Best thing I have read in a few days by far. Come now Todd, surely you have a baernoloth article or adventure brewing in there somewhere for DRAGON or DUNGEON (unless you can't stomach the transition)?
Thank you :)
I had a query bouncing around for the old versions of the magazines, and something of a pooled query going on for the new Dragon, plus one or two more narrow queries put in as well not associated with that one. No idea of anything will come of the new one(s), though I'd love to write something.
I've got another mostly written one on my desktop that I'm going to pitch to the DI, though if it (more than likely) isn't picked up I'll post it for free on Planewalker. It's about a location and a number of items there that are all linked to the legacy of the former Keeper of the Tower Arcane in Gehenna.
I'm a big fan of your other baernoloth related stuff (such as the description of various bearnoloth personages), so I am surprised that you haven't been given more of a chance to voice your stuff in a published format (though I haven't seen much of your crunch material. Most of your baernoloth stuff is lovely fluff).