|
Both Gorfang and Lynien continued to explore their surroundings, the one crashing with intentional clumsiness in order to strengthen the impression of a dumb orc with no subtlety or skill, the other tuning her city-trained skills of stealth to fit into the forest environment. Gorfang's spiral path eventually brought him into sight of structures within the forest - houses, blending so well into the trees that he'd missed them completely the first pass and only noticed them on his second. The village was small, and so beautifully integrated with the environment that it was hard to tell where the settlement ended and the forest began.
Shortly after Gorfang, Lynien also discovered the village. She studied it for some time, aware as she did so that she was being keenly watched by two female Marchwardens. She gave her shadows a little wave to show them that she'd spotted them, and after a moment's startlement, they responded in kind, smiling. They really are very attractive! she thought to herself approvingly.
During a lull in the congenial campfire talk, it occurred to Eloy to wonder where Gorfang had got to, and if he was all right. Getting up, he wandered over to where Shamlakh hulked, huge in the darkness, and addressed the warg carefully in Selasht, asking if he'd go and look for the orc. Shamlakh, who'd had instructions from Gorfang to wait there for him, opened one eye and looked at Eloy. "Only if you put your head in my mouth," he rumbled. Eloy turned away. "I'll take that as a no then," he remarked to himself.
He returned to where he'd been sitting, and resumed plying the elfmaid Milani with all the charm he could muster. While the carnal was not at all far from his mind, he had other, darker objectives as well, and a plan was forming in the back of his mind as he laughed and joked with her.
Carefully, he worked the conversation around to the point where the Mound came up. Diplomatically, apologizing again for his companions' tactless approach, he presented himself as a scholar, an educated seeker after historical lore, and - having been steered away from the subject of what was inside - diffidently asked who he would need to approach for permission to examine the structure more closely. Milani blinked; it wasn't something anyone had attempted before, but she finally shrugged. "You'd probably have to appeal to the King direct, or at least the court," she said. "The capital's a hundred miles south. I can give you a guide to escort you there." Eloy smiled warmly. "I'd much rather have you come with me," he said intimately, subtle resonances of double meanings threading his tone. Milani blushed slightly; elves, with their longer lives, approach these things a bit slower in the norm, and his directness was unsettling to her. "I can't," she replied, "my duty lasts another six months."
A few minutes later, Shamlakh was proved right, as Gorfang blundered noisily back into camp, cursing and swearing, still working on his role as 'unimpressive thug'. At the edge of the camp he paused to carve 'GOFRAGN' into the bark of a tree before dropping down in front of the fire and wolfing a large bowl of the dinner Bog had cooked. Dorian and Weira looked uneasily at each other; what had they got themselves into?
Near midnight, Gorfang clambered out of his blankets. "Going for a slash," he grunted to nobody in particular and moved out. This time, once into the trees, he moved with all the stealth he could muster. He was unarmoured and carrying only a couple of small weapons - practically naked - and worked his way carefully through the trees, using all the stealth at his disposal. Slowly, he moved out onto the lawn, looking up at the moons as he did so and grimacing at the amount of light. Glancing around, he could not see any observers, and began to hope that he was unobserved. However, as he crossed the bare earth leading to the Mound, a quiet elvish voice called from the trees; "No further, please!" Muttering, he headed back to the lawn and settled down to sleep.
While he was doing this, Lynien was taking advantage of the distraction to sneak up on the Mound from the other side. Gorfang was a seasoned, crafty warrior and nowhere near as stupid as his orc face made people think him. Lynien, though, was a skilled, trained and experienced thief, capable of almost superhuman feats of stealth. Her stance angled so as to reflect as little light as possible, all her equipment strapped close to her slender, well-muscled body so as not to rattle or clink, and her gait adjusted to an irregular, randomized series of movements to break up the pattern of movement. Slowly she moved across the space between the trees and the Mound, on the opposite side to Gorfang, until - not quite believing she'd managed it - she reached the earthwork unmolested.
 |
Seen up close, it looked strange. So far, everyone had been concentrating on the politics of getting near to it - no-one had bothered to look at it in detail. Now she came to do so, it struck Lynien that it looked rather wrong - it looked like a heap of earth that had been heaped up an hour ago, not one that had been there for fifty years. It was too sharp, too neat, too unweathered. Interested, she reached out and slowly pushed a finger into the surface. It yielded just like soft, loose earth for a few inches, and then she felt resistance - a soft, flexible surface, like rough cloth. She pushed a little harder and her hand broke through - into space.
Carefully she reached around, feeling in vain for something on the other side. Then she reached back and felt around the hole she'd made from the inside. The inner surface of the mound was made of what felt like very coarse cloth. She drew her hand out for a moment and sat back on her heels in consideration. This, then, was the secret of the Mound. It was not a cursed piece of ground where no living thing would grow, that people were kept from for their own safety - it was a sham, a fake hill hiding an underground space, and people were kept from it to prevent them discovering this.
She had a vial of Oil of Daylight in her pack, and considered using it to illuminate the inside of the Mound so that she could get a look. But she couldn't see a way of preventing light leaking out and giving her position away - being Invisible would only make things worse! Carefully, she repaired the hole she'd made as much as possible, and returned the way she'd come.
 |
Alone in his tent, Eloy was hard at work on his machiavellian plan. Taking one of the teeth he'd extracted from the white dragons killed in the battle for the g'narf'dula, he laid it on a patch of cleared earth and drew some disquieting hieroglyphs around it, quietly murmuring invocations to Sabath as he did so. Next he took a dagger and laid it against his arm, meaning to make a small cut. As he drew it across his skin, though, it seemed to catch and twitch in his hand, and before he knew it, a hot splash of his blood had washed across the entire setup. For an instant, the symbols circled around the tooth flickered with a pale radiance, and then they washed away. Cursing, and yet hopeful of sucess, he rummaged awkwardly in his pack to find one of his smaller healing potions and swigged it down, stopping the bleeding. Then he went to pick up the tooth, and hesitated. There should have been blood everywhere; but the fang lay clean atop a patch of dry earth, bereft of symbols. He picked it up and found it warm and slightly slippery to the touch. Chuckling darkly, he attached it to a piece of leather thong and looped it around his neck before turning in for the night.
The next morning, the three gathered and compared notes. After some discussion, it wa decided that Gorfang would make the attempt on the Mound - unlike the others, he seemed positively eager to get closer to the Elf Hammer. Lynien lent him Maedar's Ring, and Eloy in turn lent her his Improved Invisibility ring. The orc then set out for a ride, ostensibly to excercise Shamlakh, but in fact intending to slip off once the elves bored of watching them circle the Mound and to slip back invisible.
Eloy sought out Milani. "There is something I would like you to have," he said softly, and reached under his shirt to lift out the dragon tooth. "It means a lot to me," he continued. "I killed this dragon myself; shot it between the eyes." Skilled woodswoman though she was, Milani was had little experience in deception and dissembling, and his sly mixture of truth and lies took her in completely. He handed her the necklace, and she drew it over her head slowly, obviously moved by the gift, and slid the tooth down into her shirt between her breasts with a smouldering look from under her long lashes.
Then Eloy challenged her to a friendly contest of archery. She wasn't sure if he was joking at first, but he pointed out (truthfully in this case) that he'd shot a dragon and lived, and she laughed and accepted. Word spread rapidly, and Marchwardens began to gather to watch the half-human who had the temerity to shoot against an elfmaid.
 |
As the range and target were being prepared, Lynien, moved by a strange, chaotic impulse, pulled her fae mhor pistol crossbow out of her pack and showed it to the marchwarden she'd smiled at in the forest the day before. "Ever seen one of these?" she asked archly. The elf recoiled, as if Lynien had done something obscene. "Put that away." she said in a flat, hostile voice. Lynien could feel the elves' attitude towards her shift subtly; from someone slightly similar, who made pursuit and evasion into almost a friendly game, she suddenly was a stranger with dangerous secrets. She wondered if she'd made a mistake. Then again, it was certainly drawing attention, and that was the idea after all.
 |
Eloy and Milani prepared their bows, and stood three arrows each in the turf before them. Each drew, aimed and loosed with great care, sending their shafts winging across the sunny clearing to strike the target. As Milani shot, though, Eloy could see conflict in her face, rather than the calm relaxed concentration of a marksman; something was affecting her, putting her off her stroke. Her arrows flew less true than they should have. Eloy, though probably not as good an archer under normal circumstances, shot well, his spirits bouyed by the signs of success in his dastardly scheme, and he won the contest.
He bowed graciously to Milani, his eyes burning. "I claim my prize," he declared, "only a kiss, nothing more!" The elfmaid hesitated, finally extending a hand for him to kiss. Disappointed, Eloy recovered well and kissed it instead.
While all this had been going on, Gorfang had been busy. Hidden by the effects of Maedar's Ring, he had sneaked back to the Mound on the opposite side to where the contest was happening, and made his way swiftly across to the structure. Choosing his spot carefully to be inconspicuous, he swiftly made a hole and enlarged it enough to squeeze through. Shoving his head and shoulders through, he reached for the ground on the other side to balance and pull his legs through.
There was nothing there.
 |
 DM Note: There was some discussion here about whether the spell was cast further down the Pit, but on checking I discover Daylight is a Touch spell... so it was up where Gorfang was.. |
As he shifted backwards to get a grip, he realized the truth - there was no ground on the other side. Just a hole in the ground. He thumbed a gold piece out of his belt pouch and let it drop. For a couple of seconds there was silence, and then a distant ping announced it hitting a stone surface about a hundred feet below. Gorfang swallowed. That had been close! Quickly he unpacked his coil of rope and a steel spike and, blessing the Silence facility of Maedar's Ring, belayed a rope to the top of the shaft. He let the end drop, and wound it around himself so as to be securely suspended before abseiling ten feet or so down the pit. Then he dug out his Rod of Daylight and cast it onto another gold piece which he carried in his hand.
He saw that he was in a vast cylindrical pit, a hundred and fifty feet across and about the same deep. At the bottom was a cube of stone, about fifty feet on a side. From what he'd been told, this was probably where the Hammer was located. It seemed completely sealed, seamless and without means of access. He abseiled down a bit further, and suddenly the Daylight vanished, leaving him in the dark - and visible and audible as well. He climbed back up a bit, and it returned. An anit-magic field, as well, then.
He settled into his loop of rope, and waited, hoping that Skufruss would make contact and give him some idea what to do next...
 |
Most of the Marchwardens had gone back to their duties after the archery match, but Milani, seeming unsure why, had remained, talking with Eloy, who wasn't going to pass up the chance to work on her. Lunchtime was approaching, and Bog was preparing food with Weira's help. The elves had discovered how good the little gangrel's cooking was, and several were approaching with bowls to take advantage. Eloy had just been over to check on them and was walking back towards Milani when a voice spoke near him. "Greetings," said Skufruss calmly, "you appear to be doing well." Eloy recovered from the surprise of being scried and spoke quietly. "Are we?" he asked uncertainly. "Of course," replied Skufruss, "the elves aren't alert. There'd be hundreds of them here if they realized what you're doing. So who's in the mound?" Eloy looked upwards for a moment. "The orc." he said. Skufruss made a peculiar noise, probably connected with shock. Lynien's voice spoke suddenly, startling Eloy all over again. This was clearly scrying with knobs on. "So when are you arriving?" she asked. "I'm not," Skufruss replied, "you wouldn't believe the alarms and traps the elves have laid on the whole area to make life interesting if I show up." Gorfang's voice cut in. "You could have told us more," he said, "how are we supposed to get it out?" Skufruss' voice was mildly surprised, as if speaking to those who'd missed the obvious. "You open the cube and the energy shell, and let it out," he said. "You have the only implements on the plane capable of the feat; use the Openers of the Way." Gorfang grunted. "What use is going to another plane here?" Eloy spoke up. "Maybe you can cut a space under the cube, tip it into the hole so it breaks, or...." Skufruss spoke again. "No. It's simpler than that. The Opener is a very powerful device. Simply imagine where you want it to cut to, and cut, and it will Open the Way. You can do this. Good luck!"
Eloy walked back to the archery target where Milani was standing. "I feel a need for a wash after all that excitement," he commented. "Will you walk to the river with me?" She nodded, almost dreamily, and stood up.
 |
Gorfang lowered himself carefully into the Pit, dropping the last five feet to the hard earth floor and looking at the stone cube assessively. So, he was supposed to cut through that, was he? Well, stranger things had happened. Carefully, he drew out the Opener of the Way and thought hard about the inside of the cube for a few moments, then drew it in as large an arc as he could reach. The black knife cut through the stone without damaging it - cut past it, in some way - and an aperture appeared. Gorfang stepped through.
Inside, he found what he had been looking for. Within the cube was a shimmering energy shell, and seated inside that, cross-legged, the largest construct he had ever seen or heard tell of. Faintly glowing eyes looked down from a head as tall as Gorfang himself, but otherwise it showed no sign of life. Taking a deep breath, Gorfang lifted the Opener, and cut into the area beyond the energy field. As he did so, it collapsed - and the construct began to move.
Eloy and Milani were at the river, a bit less than a mile south of the Mound, when a series of faint tremors shook the ground. They glanced at each other, and then a sequence of regular, rhythmic shocks followed. Milani's face was puzzled at first, but then a dreadful, horrified suspicion drained into her, and she looked wildly to the nortth, then back at Eloy. He spread his hands and produced his very best "Who, me?" expression. Again, that same unsureness, uncertainty, moved across her expression, and she suddenly shook her head, spun, and bolted north towards the Mound. Eloy, all too sure what had happened, was also fairly sure that she'd have blamed him for it if it wasn't for his little gift. Smothering a grin, he grabbed up his sword and ran after her.
 |
Lynien was sitting in the camp, eating lunch, when a tearing crash of rending stone rolled across the forest, accompanied by a massive concussion. A few moments later, a series of deafening crashes came, shaking the ground. All around her, elves froze, looking around in shock that rapidly turned to horror and determination. Half a dozen remained in the camp, bows drawn and pointed at her, Bog, Dorian and Weira, while the rest ran off into the forest towards the Mound. Lynien moved slowly to Bog - who was shaking visibly - and laid a hand on his skinny shoulder. "Fear not, little nobbly creature," she said soothingly. "I'll get you out of this." Lynien felt quite fond of Bog; he cooked well, and healed wounds when they happened, and didn't demand or ask much in return, and wasn't rich enough to be worth robbing.
 |
When the bubble collapsed, the Elf Hammer stirred and flexed its' hands. Gorfang, knowing what was coming, rushed to it and clambered up the side of it until he reached its' shoulder. The surface was metal, rough in texture, but seemingly as flexible as skin, rather than segmented like armour. Just as he reached his perch, the Hammer stood up, and shot its' arms out to either side, smashing out two of the walls of its' cubical prison. The sides toppled away, but the roof dropped vertically onto the automaton's head. It shattered on impact, and a blizzard of stone chunks filled the air, leaving Gorfang superficially bloodied and bruised; he suspected that had he been on the ground, he would have been killed or trapped by the falling stone.
Slowly, the massive construct stepped across to the wall, raised an arm and punched it into the stone, smashing a deep hole. It lifted itself off the ground with this, reached up and punched another hole. As it climbed, its upper body moved violently, and Gorfang was hard put to it it cling on to the side of its' neck. After half a minute, it had reached the top, torn through the fake mound, and clambered out onto the surface, where it rose majestically to its' full sixty-foot height. Its' head rotated slowly, smoothly, seeming to look for something. Gorfang shook bits of stone and dust from his hair and looked around as well.
 |
He could see everything! This near-aerial vangtage made him understand why spellcasters liked to cast spells of flying; the tactical benefits were enormous. He could see their camp, with Lynien, Bog, Weira and Dorian staring up in disbelief; he could see Eloy and that elf bitch sprinting in from the south; he could even see the elf village away to the west. He could also see dozens and dozens of elves running full tilt from every direction, converging on the Mound.
With a lurch, the Elf Hammer moved off, striding slowly but eating up distance with every massive step. Due north and a little west it headed, straight as a die towards Tarlanor. Gorfang straightened, standing upright on the shoulder with one hand on the neck for balance, and felt like the king of the world. Glancing down, he saw Shamlakh sitting on his haunches in the camp, jaw dropped, a look of absolute astonishment on his canine face as he watched Gorfang go past mounted on this walking building. The orc bellowed "Follow me!" in the warg's own language before the Hammer crashed into the trees.
Eloy pounded into the clearing, and saw the head and shoulders of the Hammer - adorned with the orc - disappearing into the trees on the far side. "The bastard! How did he do that?" he cried for effect, and reached for his bow to shoot at the receding orc. Milani put out a hand to stop him, and a dozen of her Marchwardens pointed arrows at him from various direction. "Put that away," she said flatly. "Until we work out what's happened here, you stay where you're put." She gestured to the camp. Eloy blustered convincingly, but even the effects of his gift tooth weren't enough to stop Milani adding him to the other prisoners there.
As the mighty machine lifted from its' fifty-year prison, Lynien gazed up at it. One thought floated up through the shock; We didn't charge nearly enough for this! Around her, the elves gave cries of dismay and anger, and arrow-points lifted towards her. She lifted her hands and looked innocent and untroubled. "Stay still - unless you want to be held responsible!" rapped one. "Who, me?" asked Lynien. "You brought him here," riposted the elf, nodding towards the receding orc. Lynien stayed still. She wasn't unduly worried; she had her ring of invisibility, and her skills, and could run faster than anything in this forest; she was reasonably confident she could get herself and Bog out of this. Eloy could take care of himself, she was sure; he had his Nullity thing and had done something to that elfwoman which might help. Weira and Dorian ... well, that would be just too bad. Nothing personal. Just business.
 |
Gorfang had troubles of his own. He'd been bellowing commands in various languages into the Elf Hammer's ear - or what should have been its' ear - to no avail. He'd then discovered that, over short distances, Marchwardens could run as fast as the construct could walk when they started shooting arrows, first at it, then at him. Slewing around and pulling his bow off his back, he launched a return shot which punched an elf off his feet with his belly torn open, but the movement nearly had him off his precarious perch and he didn't do it again. After that, the elves spread out, still keeping pace, but under cover of the trees.
As Eloy reached the camp, other elves began appearing in the most remarkable manner. One moment they weren't there, and the next they had stepped out of the shadows, anywhere there were any. Clad from head to toe in form-fitting black, they had a quiet, dangerous, elite air to them, and some fanned out to examine the area while others stepped back into the shadows and disappeared again. "Shadowguard," murmured Milani, and then looked faintly surprised to have said it.
Her gaze moved back and forth, to the warriors of her command, and then to Eloy, with an air of indecision that seemed to be increasing. She made no move to lead her force anywhere, but stood next to the Man in the Shadows as whatever effect he had triggered worked deeper into her mind....
 |
 |
 |