DM Note: Aimo's back this week, so with a little Cheesy Fudge Méabh was reunited with the main group - Gorfang and Eloy this week.| DM Note: Aimo's back this week, so with a little Cheesy Fudge Méabh was reunited with the main group - Gorfang and Eloy this week. |
At that moment, a familiar voice whispered into the ears of Gorfang and Eloy. Méabh said, "Where are you? I'm on the level with the outside door, near the stairs." The pair glanced at each other, then Gorfang replied with their own position.
A few minutes later, they heard soft footsteps coming up the stairs. Gorfang and Eloy were unwilling to take it on faith that this was definitely Méabh, and likewise Méabh was cautious about what she was going to find above; and so a sorceress with a poised staff humming with prepared electrical power rounded the corner to confront an orc and a human with ready blades.
Reassured that they were not being tricked, the three relaxed and sat down to catch up. Gorfang and Eloy related the events since they had entered the Pyramid, with certain gaps here and there. Méabh explained that she'd seen the statues in the Regalia Halls, and been challenged by Gennen but unable to respond. "What was he asking?" she asked.
"They ask if you're worthy," explained Gorfang, "and then rummage through your memories to see if you really are; if they think so, they give you a gift." He and Eloy flourished their new relics to illustrate this. Méabh stood up. "Well, I intend to try this myself," she announced; "can I borrow the Translator's Ring?" Eloy handed it over, and all three trooped back down to the lower level.
Logic seemed to indicate the statue of Gennen as Méabh's best choice; but the aasimar sorceress was never one to take the obvious path. Spurning the simple answer, she marched into Nepthis' hall and stepped onto the dais of the Guide to the Next World.
 Méabh and Nepthis - click it for larger image! |
Slowly, Nepthis bent down and regarded the presumptuous mortal. Rather surprisingly for a death goddess, there was far more of the shepherd than the executioner in her mien. This, Méabh felt, was a Power that dealt fairly and kindly with the lives given her to take. When the question came, it was different from what she had been expecting. "How will you die?" asked Nepthis in a soft, level voice. Méabh blinked, but the answer was instinctive. "With ill grace," she replied. With a rush, her memories were flowing past her perception. Nepthis delved deep, examining times when the aasimar had faced death, times when she had seen death, and times when she had dealt death. It was clear that whatever Nepthis wanted in a Regalia-bearer, Méabh did not have it. Without putting down the coffin, she stepped back into place and froze.
Gorfang then approached the Queen of the Dead, but his answer - "Sword in hand, with honour," was not suitable either, even though the replay of his encounters with death took much longer than Méabh's.
Eloy too made the attempt, but "fighting for what I believe to be right" didn't impress either Nepthis or Gorfang, who raised his thick black eyebrows very skeptically. Both he and Gorfang began to feel convinced that, apart from other considerations, one item of the Regalia was the limit for anyone.
Méabh made the attempt with Isetbashyat's statue, but her unpredictability and independence were the exact opposite of what the King of the Gods valued, and she did not win the Sun Crown either. Resigned, she returned to Gennen's hall and stepped onto his dias.
The statue of the Lord of Magic bent forwards to regard her, and asked his question. "Do you truly seek to understand?" he asked, and Méabh answered simply "Yes." An instant later, her senses reeled as her mind met the vast intellect of the God of Knowledge.
Gennen searched back through her memories of her magical training, of every time she had sought knowledge, persisted against the odds to solve or answer or explain something, every time she had learned or read in a library. Unsurprisingly, Gennen bent and laid the Book at her feet before returning to his place on his dias. Méabh eyed the Book cautiously. It appeared to be made of leather, braced and bound with gold, and glowed slightly. The sorceress cast an Identify spell on it, and - apart from the unsurprising news that this was the Book of Gennen - learned that the items of Regalia were storehouses of knowledge, lore, dogma and culture laid down by the gods and rulers of Khabra before the ending of that ancient realm so that one day, maybe, the kingdom could rise again.
Méabh handed the Translator's Ring back to Eloy, then bent and lifted the Book, holding it in both hands, and opened it carefully. Creamy, unfaded parchment pages were revealed, covered in dense, neat Selasht heiroglyphic script. She and Eloy peered at the pages, their faces softly lit by the glow from the Book.
 The Book of Gennen |
At that moment, the book lifted out of Méabh's hands and up to head height, rotating slowly so that it hovered facing her. Then, with shocking suddenness, it leaped forward at her. The sorceress flinched backwards on pure instinct, but the book did not slow not stop. Instead, it faded into her face and disappeared.
Méabh glanced around, but the Book was gone. No... not gone. She could feel changes, doors opening within her mind, many in places she would not know of until she stumbled on them. The immediately obvious effect was that she could read again. The writings on the walls were clear and lucid, as they had been when wearing the ring.
As they passed the tombs level, Méabh took a detour to look in the concubines' mausoleum. With her trained senses, she could feel the low-level remnants of the aura of magical lust the place triggered. Aimed primarily at male humans, it had less effect on the female half-blood celestial than it had on the full human Eloy. Gorfang the orc had likewise been able to ignore most of the effects. Looking around for valuables, she saw drag marks and damage where things had been removed. The Blood Snake - if this was his work - had certainly been thorough in removing undefended or weakly defended items of value.
No undead concubines rose to confront the sorceress; unaware of Eloy's actions in this place, she concluded that these were simply graves, nothing else.
Ascending again, the party had started on the fourth flight without mishap when they heard sounds from above. A moment's pause and some listening and Eloy commented that it sounded like two sets of footsteps. Méabh , thinking back to past imprisonment, added that the rythmn was that of sentries; four paces, pause, four paces, pause... To be audible at this distance, though, they had to be large sentries.
On guard, then, the three climbed to the top of the flight. At the top, they discovered a very large room, completely empty except for the stairs - which continued up - and two twelve-foot bronze humanoid shapes, pacing endlessly across the room. Golems or constructs of some sort.
Gorfang stepped forwards, off the stairs, and instantly both golems turned and headed towards him. Méabh swung herself from flight to flight without touching the room floor, and hared on off up the stairs. "I'll see if we can get out," she called, "if not - lightning time!" Eloy called back, "I'll stay behind!" This was answered by a sacrastic, "I feel safer already," from Gorfang. Eloy went to draw his sword and stopped. Something told him that blades might not be best against this sort of foe, and he opted for the mace he'd used against the spidershells in Hightower.
Méabh reached the top of the fourth flight up, panting. She found herself in a square room, similar in shape to the one the golems were in but smaller. This one was empty, but a closer look showed strong-looking bronze stanchions irregularly distributed around the room. They looked new, much newer than the pyramid anyway. Méabh frowned. It almost looked as if they were holding the roof up... Her eye was caught by cracks in the ceiling and floor, and scattered piles of fallen rubble. They were holding the roof up.
She noted the stairs which continued on up, and the cylindrical pillar which dominated the centre of the room, floor to ceiling. It was around 10' thick, and it occurred to her that it was probably pretty close to the centre of the pyramid.
Turning, Méabh bounded back down the stairs. As she ran, she cast a Cat's Grace on herself, increasing her agility.
Meanwhile, below, Gorfang and Eloy had backed a way up the stairs as the nearer of the two golems approached. This was a move of genius, because it meant that only one of the constructs could get at them at once; it was quite a squeeze to get one into the stairwell. "It's one at a time!" cried Gorfang "Let's do this!" He reached for the power of the Wristband of Hektis and decided that he would strike first.
A mighty swing brought the Veldrin around to a well-judged impact with the golem - and the sharp black blade skated across the moulded bronze and off again without causing any damage. A second strike had exactly the same result, and Gorfang stared in dismay as the undamaged monster slowly approached.
Eloy swung his mace and brought it down with a clang, half-expecting the same results. However, the flanged black weapon crushed a dent into the golem, releasing a trickle of black oil like blood. Evidently, like the spiders, bludgeoning weapons were far more effective against these than slashing blades. His momentary relief vanished the next moment, for out of the corner of his eye he saw Gorfang step smartly backwards up the stairs and out of combat, leaving the Tarlanoran alone against the metal man. Eloy gulped, his nerves not completely steadied again after the events of the last few hours. He glanced down at his belt for an instant, but no help seemed to be forthcoming from that; he wasn't sure whether to take that as a good sign... Fighting defensively, he barely evaded the two massive punches the creature launched at him.
Gorfang pulled a pungent cigar out from his pocket and jammed it unlit between his teeth as he swung his pack from his back. Sheathing the Veldrin, he unhitched the Maul of Brutality from where it was lashed to the pack, and hefted it, grinning. Now then...
He was just about to step back into the battle when he heard Méabh's running feet above him. Remembering her parting comment, he leaned over against the wall instead as she rounded the corner above him and stopped at the top of the stairs, the words of her spell already falling from her lips.
Below, Eloy fought on with the speed of absolute terror. His mace crashed home once more, but his concentration on defence prevented him doing any real damage. The sound of Méabh chanting reached his ears, and he knew what that meant. He shifted his balance and stepped to his right away from the centre line.
A blinding blast of electrical energy raved down the stairwell, passing close enough to Gorfang and Eloy to make all their hair stand on end, and struck squarely on the construct's chest. The electricity itself probably had little effect on the machine, but the heat it generated was more than enough to melt regular bronze. The golem wasn't just bronze, but the heat was enough to make the whole thing glow a bright red, and for the moulding of features and armour on its' surface to begin to blur and melt.
At that moment, Gorfang - who'd waited for precisely this - stepped forwards and swung the Maul with both hands. The huge weapon crashed against the metal construct and the weakened bronze structure disintegrated from the impact. Bits of hot metal flew in all directions, bouncing off Eloy's shield and Gorfang's head.
"Back up!" cried Méabh, already weaving another Lightning Bolt ready for the next sentry. The two warriors retreated further up the stairs as the machine forced its way into the stairwell, dislodging chunks of stone from the walls. This one seemed a little bigger...
The blast of lightning struck it, but didn't seem to have quite the effect of the previous one, so she prepared another. Then Eloy and Gorfang charged down the stairs to engage it. Gorfang, uncharactaristically, missed it twice, but Eloy put more dents into the structure. The third Lightning Bolt smashed down the stairs, missing Eloy by a hairs' breadth, and heating the golem to a white heat. It lashed out with its' huge fists; Eloy cowered away out of reach but Gorfang took a heavy punch in the stomach. The hot metal fist crashed home, and he noticed with horror that several rings of the armour broke off and spun away. Enraged, he swung back with the Maul, returning the attack with interest, and then Méabh's third Lightning Bolt smashed the golem to bits.
As the other two got their breath back, Méabh poked around in the bits of golem, in case there had been something valuable built into its insides. All she found was fragments of cooling metal, however. Then she turned to the bloodied Gorfang. "Do you need any healing assistance?" she asked him.
After a brief struggle with his manly (orcly?) pride, Gorfang answered that he would appreciate some healing. Méabh unpacked her stolen staff and healed some of his worst injuries for him. "Who needs Bog?" muttered Gorfang under his breath; Eloy didn't catch the comment.
Remembering something she had forgotten, Méabh cast her Mage Armour before going any further. Then the party climbed up to the room with the stanchions. Here, as in the room below, there were signs that the area had once been partitioned off for reasons unknown, but that the original furninshings had been stripped out to change the rooms' functions. Led by Eloy, as he checked for traps, they ascended again.
 Cutaway view of the top level - click it for larger image! |
The last flight - of all, as it turned out - ended in a vast chamber, vaulted and pyramidal at the top. This was clearly the hollow top of the main pyramid, and it was not empty.
In the centre of the space was a vast, flat-topped cone, a hundred and fifty feet high and two hundred across. A spiral staircase of filligreed iron ran around it, ascending to the top. At the top, a circle of standing stones ringed the rim of the flat space at the top, which looked to be around 50' across. These were covered in runic patterns of green light, and connected by tendrils of energy... and were uncomfortably familiar.
They were Powerstones.
Suspended in mid-air a hundred feet further up, not far below the tip of the pyramid, was a smaller pyramid shape, around a yard across on each side. This was green, translucent and glowing gently.
"Damn!" said Gorfang. "Maybe we shouldn't have broken the other one...."
Then their attention was caught by a movement, of a humanoid figure between two of the Powerstones. Although more than two hundred feet away, they could see that this individual was dressed in red armour. Not a bright, brisk red, but a dark, smouldering, bloody red. It appeared to be doing something to one of the Powerstones.
Gorfang and Méabh made a dash for the bottom of the cone, but Eloy remained on the stairs, stringing his bow as he went back down a couple to gain some cover. Glancing up, he evaluated the shot - long, but possible. Carefully, he selected ammunition that he had dipped in the frog poison acquired in the Trakar. As his comrades reached the base of the cone, he drew the bow and launched three arrows at the red-armoured figure.
His third shaft struck home, lodging in the side of the figure's helmet and knocking it back. It staggered for a moment, then levelled a finger at Eloy. In a voice clearly audible to everyone, it intoned "You'll die for that!" The green pyramid above began to glow more brightly, and more power to flow between the Powerstones.
Time to go, thought Eloy, sprinted across to the cover of the cone and started up the stairs. As he did so, with a deafening grinding sound, all four walls moved, hinging up from a point near the pinnacle and lifting away from the side of the outer pyramid. Blinding early-evening daylight flooded in, dazzling everyone.
Slowly, the panels lifted to an angle of around 15 degrees. Then, slowly at first but accelerating, they began to rotate.
And all this time, the green crystal pyramid grew brighter and brighter....
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