House of the Dwarf Priest

Southwold, outside Lossal, Tarlanor, 27th May 1655

As the cavalrymen of the Soulgrinders closed in to take Icefair's body, Gorfang put a foot squarely on what was left of it and set his shoulders. "I won the fight," he declared. "These are my spoils." Icefair's second eyed him for a moment, glanced back at the nine other mounted soldiers behind him, prepared to speak, looked down at Icefair's headless corpse and its' unused weapons, and changed his mind. "You'll be hearing from the Governor about this," he muttered, before mounting up and leading the escort away empty-handed.

Satisfied, Gorfang rifled the body for any valuables, kicked it into a ditch, and headed back inside, to wake the slug-a-beds and organize breakfast.

Mageguild, Lossal, Tarlanor, 27th May 1655

Méabh woke from a lie-in to a knocking at the door, which turned out to be a messenger from the estate at Southwold, sent to request her presence at Gorfang's manor for a council of war. Dressing, she retrieved her horse from the stables and rode out to join the others.

Southwold, outside Lossal, Tarlanor, 27th May 1655

While they waited for Méabh, Lynien was shuffling through the papers she and Eloy had retrieved from the headquarters of the Guild of Filchers. Some of these were of little interest. One - a report on the Guild's income from protection on whorehouses (including Cassandra's) - she passed to Méabh, as it showed a very healthy business; the aasimar was bidding on a good buy. Extracting some that she thought might be valuable, she passed the rest back to Darnivarn.

The major question was, what next? Several options were apparent;

• The Fae Mhor of House Wedrith seemed unlikely to stop pursuing the sword Veldrin Sk'aal. While their attempts thus far to retrieve it had been almost more amusing than dangerous, they were not going to give up unless strongly rebuffed. Taking the fight to them, at their expedition base near the Engeror Mountains, might be a better move.
• Lynien had plans developing to attempt what was generally held to be impossible; to steal from Guild Venter. Her initial recon had shown her that a conventional robbery was not practical; her thoughts were currently running along the lines of some kind of scam using a dupe and the signed papers with the Governor's seal.
• The activities and behaviour of Erilas, and their links to the late unlamented Bardrum, were yet to be explained.
• Méabh revealed that she had an urge to return to Nasirolan and follow up on clues she'd encountered there that suggested her father might still be alive - a situation she would want to alter were it to be so.
• Governor Linril had agreed to arrange an audience for them with the Lord of Tarlanor, Skuffruss Dragonloed himself, in the wake of the removal of Bardrum. Vorsand, with its' large magical academies, was a place of interest for any worker of the magical arts, and the protective items Lynien was seeking were more likely to be available there. Several other threads - including Bardrum's slush fund - led to the capital.
• Méabh made no secret of her continued desire to own the Veldrin herself. While not intending to try and take it from Gorfang, if the unlikely happened and someone did beat the orc, the best place to be in order to take advantage of the sword's change of ownership was in his company...

The most immediate item seemed to be a return to the house of Breyurlos the dwarf to secure any clues as to why he would hire thieves to steal a Fae Mhor sword - and why Fae Mhor were in his house - before they were lost. The Fae Mhor's magical Darkness was the major stumbling block. Only magic could deal with that, and so Méabh agreed - unwillingly - to go along; though she warned that her magic could only defeat Darkness twice, maybe three times, at most. Added to this was the fact that Lynien, herself able to create magical Darkness, was immune to its' effects and able to operate normally. This was judged enough, and Gorfang, Lynien and Méabh headed back to the city to tackle the priest's house.

Breyurlos' House, Lossal, Tarlanor, Dusk 27th May 1655

Pausing on the other side of the street - which was quiet  but not deserted - the three eyed the house. Nothing appeared to have changed; the door looked as solid as ever, and the rightmost window was still broken. Moving over to it, Gorfang and Lynien chose their moment carefully and slipped unobserved through the hole and into the room beyond. Méabh remained outside leaning on the wall.

This again was unchanged; dust and broken furniture artfully arranged to portray a room in a derelict house. Only some shards of glass on the floor near the window and some bloodstains on the floor remained from Gorfang's previous visit. The door he'd smashed open was back in its' frame, undamaged and grubby as it was before. Lynien pursed her lips. Magically mended, it had to be.

Gorfang's first move was to attempt to open the front door. There turned out to be an inner door, opening into a small porch, and this was trapped with one of the best-made poison needle traps Lynien had ever seen. On the other side was the outer door, which was bolted and barred from the inside and straightforward to open. Gorfang opened this and called quietly to Méabh, who strolled in the easy way.

Lynien, meanwhile, was checking the three exits from the dusty room. The repaired central door was still trapped, but the other two were not - strange. As the others joined her, she opened the one on their left and they found themselves in what had once been a library. It was lined with wooden shelves, now all empty, and had four small reading desks, all deapidated and dusty. A larger table stood near the door at the other end, and the dust had been partially cleared from that, possibly by a large document. The prints of narrow, booted feet surrounded this table and led to the far door. Lynien and Gorfang studied this and looked at each other. "I'm quite happy for you to open it," said the orc. "I'm completely comfortable with you opening it," returned Lynien. After a few moments, Gorfang reached out and very quietly pulled it open.

It opened, as expected, into the hallway Gorfang had reached on his previous visit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was still guarded. A Fae Mhor warrior loafed elegantly on the other side of the hall, just beginning to react to the opening of the door. Twenty feet north in the hall was another, facing away, and apparently unaware that the door had been opened. Gorfang grinned and lunged at the nearest one; before he could move, however, Lynien had slipped past and run at incredible speed up the hall to plunge Treytas into the back of the unobservant one. He went down like a sack of spuds and she began to turn, only then becoming aware of the third dark warrior who'd been out of their line of sight through the door. Before she could turn he lashed out with a long, slender sword at her face. She weaved desperately and almost avoided the blow, but it slashed across the side of her face in a spray of blood.

Gorfang strode across the gap ready to strike his adversary - and everything went dark. He ground his teeth in angry frustration - not again! This, however, was what Méabh was waiting for. Using the Spellslider power granted by the Book of Gennen, she reached into the arcane memories of a God for a spell she didn't know, and cast it. A Dispel Magic matched itself against the Darkness of the Fae Mhor, and suddenly it was light again. The orc struck home, and his foe dropped.

Wounded and desperate, Lynien turned to Maedar's Ring for rescue and disappeared from view. As the Fae Mhor she fought prepared to lash out at where whe had been, Gorfang charged across behind her and cut him down.

Lynien reappeared and pulled out a healing potion, slugging it down and sighing in relief as it eased the pain. Gorfang searched the fallen Fae Mhor, taking the containers of sleep poison each carried, and glanced around the hall. It was obvious that this was where the guards spent most of their time, because there were plates, cups and bones scattered everywhere. This was what happened when a slave-owning race found itself without slaves - no housework.

Crossing the hall, they party opened the door opposite the one they'd come through and found themselves in what must once have been the house's dining room. A few chairs remained under the table, a couple more at the edges. Of more immediate interest was the corpse securely roped to the table. Although it had been extensively, lavishly tortured to death, it was still recognizable as a surface elf. Gorfang, who knew a bit about such things, recognized the torture as ritual in nature, while Lynien confirmed the style was very much the same as that she had seen in the wrecked Thieves' Guild. The corpse was around 48 hours old.

Lynien's hopes of a secret door were raised by tracks in the dust leading to a corner, but they turned out to reach a chair on which a set of torturer's tools lay in a leather pouch. Slender, black and elegant, Gorfang thought they looked too delicate to be any use, but he added them to his collection anyway.

The next door they opened led into a room that had been completely stripped of its contents. A complex and disturbing octogram had been inscribed on the floor, surrounded and interwoven with Fae Mhor script. Two large packing crates stood nearby. Lynien went to investigate these, while Gorfang urinated on the octogram, mainly out of contempt, but also to break up the outlines in case it was there for summoning things. Méabh hung back, muttering about her father and looking strange.

Lynien levered up the lid of the first packing crate. She caught a brief glimpse of straw, and black wooden objects, and a flash of gold, and then a black hairy blur hurled itself out of the case directly at her. She twisted, trying to evade it, but to no avail - the spider, its' body a foot across, fastened itself onto her right arm and sank its fangs into her. She felt the suction as it prepared to suck the blood out of her flesh. With a cry of pain and horror, she siezed the furry body with her other hand and tried to pull it off. Lynien was no Gorfang, but she was no weakling either; this spider, though, took every ounce of strength she possessed to pull off her arm. Finally she got it free, and it writhed and clicked in her hand, its black legs moving hideously as it tried to escape. Drawing a dagger with her free hand, she drew it across the arachnid's clicking fangs, smearing it in the poison that dripped from them. Then she drew another, forced it down onto the packing case, and sliced at the spider's head. It took far more effort than she'd expected, but finally she managed to cut its head off.

As soon as it died, she felt it starting to get rapidly heavier. Remembering the undead spiders of Hightower, she flung the corpse into a corner and reached for a sword. By the time she drew, however, the process was complete and she relaxed again. The dead spider had grown in size, until it was larger than a sheep - though still dead. This explained why it was so tough to kill, but why shrink a massive spider into a smaller one? To fit in the packing crate as a guardian....

Cautious of further nasty surprises, Lynien pushed the crate over rather than fishing inside. It contained what appeared to be a dismantled portable shrine, and right in the middle a golden, ruby-eyed idol of what Méabh recognized to be Lolth, the demon queen of spiders - and goddess of the Fae Mhor. After a brief discussion over whether it was worth more with or without the eyes, Gorfang picked it up, feeling a tingle of magical energy pass through his fingers. He wasn't sure, but he had the distinct feeling that some of the others might not have fared so well had they tried the same thing.

Lynien tipped out the other crate, to discover a collection of books and papers. Flipping through, she realized they were written in the disturbing and obscure Fae Mhor langauge. She had left the Translator's Ring with Eloy, and as a result was unable to read them. She knew that Méabh could, however, and so she called the sorceress over. Méabh peered disinterestedly over Lynien's shoulder, but became more interested when she realized what she was looking at. There were two bundles; one, a bound book, was the dreadful Service to Lolth itself, a sequence of words of dire potentialities; the other was loose papers and pamphlets, primarily centered on training young Fae Mhor priestesses to use their magic. While not the same as her magic, Méabh knew that such works would be greatly prized amongst the community of wizards. She stacked them carefully in a corner for later retrieval.

Lynien was wounded once again, and had used her only healing potion. Gorfang, better prepared for this, passed her a flask of Boom Boom. Lynien swigged it, and staggered slightly; the little mongrel was putting more brandy than ever into the damn stuff!

Nonetheless her wounds receded and she began to feel better. A thought struck Gorfang and Lynien, and they returned to the head of the felled spider and milked its poison sacs for all they could get, storing the fluid in the recently-emptied Boom Boom bottle. Tucking the bottle away, they looked around...

Méabh was gone. No sign of (more) struggle, no sound. Simply gone. Something told Lynien - who knew her best of the two of them - that the sorceress had reached some kind of internal decision and gone off on business of her own.