003 - Waking the Dead

Well, the past two days have put me on edge some, but it has been great in some ways. Vol and I now have a definite direction to go in, rather than wandering aimlessly to spread war (and some panic). I mean, there will still be fighting and panic, but basically, we accidentally resurrected a god whose divergence from nature spits at the feet of our gods. So we aim to put a stop to that.

That night in the fog room, the little raccoon must have wandered off, as we didn't see him or his traces in the morning. But we prepared ourselves to alert, anyway, and we walked down a long hall. At the end of the hall it opened into large room with a dais in the back with a large table and two thrones on top of it. There were pillars and coffins lining the side of the room. The Wilden, with his keen eye for starting trouble (the unnecessary kind) hurried up to a skeleton in one of the thronechairs, and tried to take the crown on its skull. The skeleton grabbed his arm before he could take it. Then Vol and I hid mostly behind a pillar, still looking out. We saw the skeleton growing organs and flesh tissue as he spoke to the Wilden. Asked why we weren't wearing our ceremonial garbs. It struck me that this was Vecna, damned and true before my own eyes. And I shivered of dread. Vecna launched the Wilden and his spider against the wall near the hall, struggled to walk forward to the center of the room. But once there, he folded his red fiery cloak over himself, and uncovered himself a large white dragon of ice.

Vol understood who this was as well, and ran out of hiding at the dragon shouting war cries for his god Kord, and unabashedly sharing the finest edge of his ax with our most modest of hosts. The Wilden disappeared for a while in battle. (I later learned this was because he was skilled in teleportation.) Vol at some point had received a blessing from Kord (I surmise it was as he leapt from the pillar at the start), and he was dealing intensely damaging strikes, until the Vecna collapsed and returned to human form. He stood, appearing to take much difficulty in this, folded his cloak around himself, once again, and said, "I will see you again". With that, his cloak burst into flames, a fireball rising to and through the high, brightly-glowing ceiling.

(M'lord Balinor and Kord are very similar. I like to think Vol had Balinor's blessing, as well as Kord's, with each of my healing words.)

With that, we checked up with each other, but we were all in good condition, despite the battle.  We opened a few of the coffins, now that the god of necromancy was gone. There were bodies of his priests in there. I am not rightly sure why he hadn't summoned them from death to aide him, but I wasn't complaining. I took a few things from some of them. Of note: I found a pouch of platinum and a set of aerial hovering sandals among them. Those would have been useful yesterday, no doubt. The Wilden took the crown from the ground where it had fallen in battle, and pulled a large, diamond-shaped gem out of it. We turned back to see if this would fit in the setting in the wall in the first room. Once in the hall, we were teleported there, coming out of the room to the right, where the sunrod and the raven had gone.

As the gem was placed into the wall, everything around us rumbled, and a loud hissing sound drowned out our talking. It was the hissing of sand. The big pile of sand and rubble had shifted out of the way and revealed a door. We opened it, and... sunlight. Beautiful, eye-searing sunlight. We were above ground, and, how-but the temple had risen from the sand when we put the gem in the socket. We determined to not leave this temple of the damned remain here, so we had the Wilden ride back in the temple on his speedy spider, take the gem and race back out as it sank. And Vol and I stood outside, expecting the Wilden to come back out as the temple was slowly eaten back by the sand. But, no, the temple just collapsed as quick as that, with the Wilden still under it. The spider was able to crawl out of the rubble, but it looked real hurt. Vol and I started digging for the Wilden, and we pulled him out, looking just about as dead as death. But he wasn't, just knocked out. I fixed him up good, though, just like I did my family back home, when they needed it. Funny how you treat some folks like close, when all you got is three days of past behind you, and you're still a little unraveled by them.

We surveyed the pile of rubble, what was left of the temple. Everything was demolished, but the one spire. It glowed bright at the tip, and shone a straight light consistent to the east. The beacon was lit. It was calling to somebody, or letting something know the temple had been lifted, its god had been reborn. After a bout of trying to turn it off or cover the beacon, we lit many a thing afire, Vol fell from the tower, and I dislocated my shoulder; so we went back to Tal'Nir to rest and resupply before heading back east.

We arrived back at the Desert Pearl, and booked a few rooms at the inn. I rested up a bit, then went out on the town to find an alchemist who could teach me about the jar of fog water I collected. One was able to reverse-engineer the substance, and showed me how it was done. I learned a few other things from him, and stocked up on reagents for brewing in the field. Once at the inn, I holed myself up in the room for the next 16 hours, on an alchemy binge. Vol was in once at the beginning, then left a bit later. At the end, smelling rank of chemicals and humours, I bathed and decided to relax in the hotel lounge. I ordered a lightly bubbled, sweet wine, and found the Wilden there, enjoying his own drink. And we talked for a while, until Vol came in beaten and bruised, and we talked some more.

The Wilden... For one whose face I've known all this time, but not a name to link it, I wonder what his trouble is. I get that he's not the most trusting of people; fact of the matter is though, when it comes to trust, I'm not waiting to hear a name before I can poison him. If I wanted to poison him he'd be dead already. It's been, what, five days travelling and fighting together. I've been thinking of giving him a nickname.

002 - Under the Desert

The sand dumped us way into a large room, with pillars and pews and other such religious necessities. None of us were severely hurt.  We tried to get our bearings, and found ourselves to be in a buried temple to Vecna, the god of secrets and necromancy. Of note for later: an indentation in the wall looking to be set in by something diamond-shaped. Two doors, one off to the left and one to the right from where we fell. The sand had stopped pouring from the ceiling, but still that exit was way too high. We have to find another way out.

We opened both doors, but nothing was seen through to the other rooms. Not sunrods, not familiars. The Wildens raven didn’t come back to us from the room to the right. So we went left. When we passed into the darkness, we found ourselves in another room, lit and full seeable by the sunrod I tied to my side. Seemed quiet and empty, but drakes hung from the pillars and swooped at us. The little raccoon climbed one pillar and pulled one down to the ground, that sure was something to see. It was so much bigger than him. The Wilden doesn’t seem all that great a fighter, maybe his nerves, maybe he’s just scared of drakes or the darkness, but his spider mount can kill something fierce. As much as it terrifies me, I’m just glad I’m on the good side of its temperament for now. Of note for later: Also stay on the Wilden’s good side; he and the spider seem quite shared-minded.

The Wilden even stabbed himself with his own halberd. That made me laugh. I opened the drake bodies for supplies, and found some rings, too! The little raccoon raided the nests high on the pillars and found things. He brought down a mace, which he held up to me. I gratefully accepted and paid him a nice reward in coin for sharing his loot.

We took the left exit at the far end of the room, and we somehow wound up back in the room we fell in, but through the right door. We determined this to be teleportation magic, and re-entered into the left room to try the exit at the far right. This took us into a room with small pits all over the floor, walls, and ceiling. The little raccoon alerted this to us all, just in time for the Wilden to dodge a spear that shot up from one of the floor-pits. The whole room was trapped with floor-spears, flame jets in the walls, and boulders falling from above. The latter ones tore chunks out of the floor when they fell, leaving an opening into a deep pit. It was at the end of this room, we had to jump over one of the holes. It was small, 5-feet across. My gimped leg decided to act up just as I leapt, which tripped me up, and I fell into the pit.  As I fell though I was grabbed by most everyone. Not sure rightly how they all grabbed hold of me at the time, but they did, and I’m thankful. The little raccoon clawed into my face, though. Not my most dignified of pratfalls, but surely not my worst either.

When we came to leave the room, we found ourselves at the end of a long and narrow bridge over the same unlightable darkness between all the rooms. Carefully we tried to cross, but at times we all grew dizzy over the pitch nothing and fell (except the Wilden riding the spider). Fortunately, we were teleported from the abyss back to our end of the bridge, rather than just left falling. (What damned religion needs this in their temple I am left clueless as empty testes, but who am I to ridicule a god in his own house.) Vol had a great idea; he handed me one end of a rope from his pack, and took the other end with him as he bound across the bridge, natural as hunting. We each tied our ends to the door handles, and held tight to the rope as we crossed.

The next room we entered was steaming with a sight-deadening fog that lifted from a liquid that was pooled over the entire floor. I scooped some into a small jar for later. I figure I could learn to make something good from this, if not recreate it entiredly. Before I could stand I even saw figures making their way through the fog to us. We had to fight a small crowd of skeletons, and of what they used to be I could not tell you, because I am no bone scholar. The Wilden and his spider darted out of sight early, but I ended up sticking where I work best, with Vol my brother. We are a team, I suppose as much as he and his spider are. And to be truthful, I just don’t care much about them.  I forgot to write this earlier, but I put aside my callous remarks and introduced myself with a handshake. He shook mine, but refused to give his name! And he had the rocks to even ask my brother’s name, after that! So, secretly, I was wishing harm to him. (An old friend told me he believes I became a cleric to heal the people I wish harm upon, to atone for my ill prospect. I think he was full of horse shit.)

This was about the time the little raccoon swung his sword around again. Usually he centers himself between a few creatures and spins himself with an outreached blade, striking several of them. This time, though, the ratty bugger cut into me fierce. Probably not meaning to, but I never did get to know a typical behavior set of the raccoon. He cut into my leg, and I was terribly worried he damaged it even worse than usual, so I kicked him. It wasn’t a hard kick, but he did hit one of the bonemen pretty hard. I looked behind me to see Vol holding off a giant scorpion, with the help of the Wilden’s spider mount.  Vol was seized by its claws and rescued by the Wilden and his spider, and killed the nasty bugger. I looked through the scorpion (shudder) for humours and alchemical portions, as usual.

The far side of the room had a raised platform, in clear air, where there was no fog water puddled on the floor, so there we went, and it was there we found the door. And it was there I stopped writing because it was there I needed to rest for a bit.

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Vol and Reid
Death and Life

- Diamond dent in wall.

- What's in the room to the right?

- Rabies shots.

001 - Into the Desert

I've been through the desert on a mount with no name.
It felt good to be out of the rain.

It's been a while since I've been in the desert; the heat is somewhat irritating, but the dry air is somewhat pleasant. When Tal'Nir rose above a dune on the horizon, I looked to my brother, Vol, with a smile on my face. The city was surrounded with shiny white walls, with a giant white tower rising from its center. As we entered, we saw that every building was built with the same white stone. It was a bright city, somewhat sore on the eyes.

There was something Vol didn't like about the town, so I kept my guard up with his. It might have been the crowds. Or it might have been that the white buildings reflected light so well, that there wasn't not a spot of shade anywhere. It could just as well been the Wilden we kept on passing by, who was riding on a giant spider. I could tell he wasn't following us, but he still distressed us, because of the Giant Damn Spider.

We initially sought food, but found ourselves in a scuffle not a half hour in the walls. While trying to sell some of my specialized ale to a drunkard by a diner,  I caught a lifter diggin through my pocket, and threw him to the ground. Vol and I roughed up the rest of his gang and and the drunkard (what a ruse); afterward, we let them pay us for the privilege. The pickpocket I first threw on the ground was the only one we left conscious, but I force-fed him some of my ale. It smells like ale, and tastes like ale, but it has a much different effect (it scares the shit out of ya). We picked him up and sent him running back into the crowd, clutching his ass, while I called out "Running makes it worse!" and laughed.

We decided to use their donation to eat in a nicer part of town. The Heated Brew. A gnome served us at the bar; Vol muttered that gnomes are angry because they're short and they have no souls. I laughed, and Vol got magically nutritious gnome spit in his stew. We caught wind of a desert temple, word between the Gnome and a Wilden patron, the same one riding that spider.

We went to the library, the bookhaven; we found a small book about this desert temple, the Temple Ka'Zil, and found a map inside. We rearranged a few of the books (Abysmal Orgies belongs in the children's section!), but the Drow librarian, with some arcane witchery, locked us in. We had to go all the way back up to the third floor to put the books back in place. By the time we left, the sun had gone down, so we found the most affordable inn -- The Heated Brew. When we got there, well after dark, to find the spider hitched out front. Shit. Luckily the Gnome had left for the day, though.

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Today, Vol and I rose early to head for the temple in the desert. We made good time out of the city and got a decent head start, but very quickly learned we weren't the only ones headed to the temple. The Wilden was ahead of us, and a raccoon was trotting behind at an astonishing pace. The slow wheel of time put us traveling together, and so we passed the hours in talking. The raccoon had the most absurd story of them all. He was an elemental construct turned to animal by a vengeant wizard, or something like that. He can't speak the common tongue, so whereas we all talk, the little beasty writes on a pad of paper. His scribblin isn't the most literate, even. Once we put him on the back of the spider, his eyes got wide and he froze in place for the rest of the journey. That shut up his chattering mouth real quick.

Then out of nowhere, four whirlwinds of sand burst from the ground and surrounded us. Damn elementals. All they are is ill will hiding danger in plain sight. Not even sure what we were in for, I turned to see what Vol had in mind. But they went down easy enough. The raccoon could fight fierce, I was surely surprised.  But now he was staring at the ground, maybe seeing something we can't see, or hearing something we can't hear. And at that point the ground caved in under us.