With a roar, Gorfang charged headlong at the statue, hoping to overbear it and hurl it back into the chasm. To his amazement, however, it braced itself and absorbed the impact without moving its' feet. It hefted its' massive fists ready to punch the orc, but Gorfang retaliated with the doublesword of Gozân and pounded it to gravel in a few moments.
While this was happening, Lynien had reluctantly tried the dead general's helmet on, wondering if it might bring benefits that would be worth it for her. Unlike the others, she'd never worn a helmet, and was taken aback at how badly it restricted her vision and hearing. Her bad-tempered muttering rang hollowly on from within the helm as she vainly tried to activate its higher powers while complaining about the size, shape, weight and design, all of which were due to its' being designed by a man, of course.
She suddenly realized that she was alone, and doffed it to locate Gorfang and Eloy. She found them gazing into the chasm of cold flames, wondering what was at the bottom. Gorfang had rigged a rope, and was abseiling down. Disdaining such aids, the tiefling scambled over the edge and clambered down the wall like a spider. Eloy bypassed the whole process by donning his Ring of Flying and floating down through the visual inferno towards the bottom.
The floor of the chasm was rough-cut stone, criscrossed with iron bars onto which the Continual Flame spell was enchanted. At first glance, it seemed like a featureless, empty pit, filled with flames that didn't burn anything. Both Lynien and Eloy had weapons capable of detecting secret doors, and so finding the hidden panel in the wall was a matter of routine. After carefully checking it for traps, they opened it, half expecting to find some sort of maintenance cupboard, and discovered an narrow flight of stone steps, leading sharply downward. Regular niches held some kind of magical light, but the stairs still receded out of sight in a straight line down.
Interested, they set off down the flight. It took quite a while to descend, and they fell to bickering over the helmet again after a while to pass the time. Lynien demanded the word to make it work from Eloy, while Eloy wanted her to give it to him so he could demonstrate. Finally, she passed it over, and he put it on and spoke the word. Instantly, he faded into an insubstantial wraith and then vanished altogether as it shifted him onto the ethereal plane. While he remained where he was, he was aware that he was only 'standing on' the stairs by convention, and were he to try, he could move in any direction he chose, regardless of gravity or obstacles. Gorfang tested the effects by firing a couple of arrows at where he'd been, but he'd very sensibly moved a bit and they missed.
Removing the helm, he handed it back to Lynien who grunted and stuffed it into a bag. "Might use it one day," she muttered, and the group continued down.
After half an hour's walking, the stairs ended abruptly in a door, set into the wall. It looked new and regularly used, and after checking it for traps Lynien unlocked it with a casual flourish. "I could have opened it quicker," said Gorfang lifting one foot slightly. Lynien glanced at him. "But after that, we'd not be able to close it again if we wanted to," she pointed out. Gorfang shrugged, and pushed it open.
 DM Note: As the Dark Tower was gone, I had removed the notes and maps from my binder, so when they found this $ door I didn't have them to hand. I couldn't remember which tower had gone down either, so I winged it and (of course) it had to turn out to be the North Tower! So what's described here isn't quite what happened at the table, but it stands up with what they did and what they planned for later. |
They were expecting a variety of possibilities of what lay beyond, but what they didn't expect was familiarity. The door opened into a rough, cave-like area with cracks in the floor and a massive rent in the far wall. It was the cavern that formed the top floor of the North Tower of the Dark Tower, and the rent was the one smashed by Vengan Doomstealer when he and Eloy had crashed through the now-obliterated window on the night of Skuffydämmerung. The light coming through the opening was criss-crossed with shadow, and the tendrils of the iron jungle could be clearly seen latticing the aperture. What was a new discovery was that the tendrils had not penetrated the interior of the Tower...
The cavern was still empty, so they went to the spiral staircase and headed down. After a few turns, daylight began to show below, and they emerged from the stairs onto a precarious ledge which was all that remained of the next floor down. When the North Tower had collapsed, it had torn away from the topmost part which was built into the cliff face, leaving a small section under the stairs and the attachment for the uppermost of the linking bridges to the Central Tower. The Iron Jungle had crawled up around the ledge, forming 'walls' of a sort, although they were scarcely more appealing than an opening on a drop.
Although the bridge was still up, it didn't look strong, and a Slow Teleport or Fly across was probably a better bet. After that, the possibility of exploring the parts of the Tower they'd missed opened up. They resolved to come back and do so, after the events of the coming night were concluded.
Retracing their way up the steps, they returned to the tomb, climbed out of the chasm, and headed for the exit. Nothing had changed in the plundered tomb, and they stepped out through the front doors with cheerful confidence .. and everything went grey.
In each of their minds, a window opened, and a scene was visible. It showed something they had none of them ever seen, but all recognized from stories - the sea. The sun was setting into the ocean as waves broke on a beach. For a moment, nothing moved, and there was no visible reason for why they were seeing it. Then a shimmer in the air gradually coalesced into a humanoid figure, standing just at the marge of the water. It was like nothing they had ever seen before.
The being itself was human-shaped, but instead of skin and flesh, its' body was made up of mechanisms; spinning flywheels, shifting gears, sliding plates, clicking escapements, all tiny and intricately detailed. As far as it was possible to tell, the whole thing was made of pure gold. It wore armour, which again appeared made of solid gold, and had a bright red cloak thrown over the top. A glittering silver sword was held in its' right hand, which it sheathed as its transition became complete. Its movements were not the jerky, mechanized ones of a construct, but the smooth, assured ones of a sentient being. It glanced around a few times, getting its' bearings, and then strode swiftly and decisively forwards, 'towards' the viewers, and disappeared from view. A cold, grim voice touched with anger spoke in each of their minds; "YOU HAVE DESECRATED THIS GRAVE AND YOUR DEATHS ARE INEVITABLE". The vision faded, and the sunlight came washing back.
The three companions glanced at each other. After a moment, they shrugged. So something else was hunting them. How bad could another one be?
With Eloy announcing his upcoming marriage to the witch Sashia the next night, Gorfang and Lynien decided that he absolutely had to celebrate with a proper stag night, despite the groom-to-be's very justified misgivings. Gorfang and Lynien made some preparations and the three hit the town.
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All three knew Lossal well, so they were soon partying hard in some of the best bars in town. Eloy was very carefully trying to hold back and keep his intake below his tolerance level, but unfortunately for him Gorfang was a skilled and practiced poisoner. As Eloy's attention was caught by a smoothly-swaying passing female form, the orc emptied a pre-prepared devil's cocktail featuring a liberal quantity of Typril's best brandy into his light ale.
Within a very few minutes, the assassin was cheerfully bellowing a song which would have gotten him thrown out on the spot had it not been in a language that no-one had spoken for three thousand years. In the middle of the third verse, his concentration appeared to waver, resulting in a description of an act of love guaranteed to result in severe injuries which trailed off as his eyes rolled back and he passed out on the spot. Lynien and Gorfang met each others' eyes and grinned.
Gradually, Eloy's eyes dragged themselves open. Somebody appeared to be drilling hot metal into his brain through them, and he groaned at whoever it was to stop. Nothing happened, and he tried to reach up to cover his vision; something seemed to be wrong, though, as he couldn't seem to move his arm. He began to wonder about this, and then everything was obliterated by a pulse of agony behind his forehead. He gasped, and it came again, in time with his heartbeat, and he seriously began to wonder if there was a way he could stop that merciless rythmn just for a little while.
He blinked again, and again, and the blurred misery of his vision slowly resolved itself into a street scene. After a minute or two he realized he recognized it; it was Wargate Street, between the Mercenaries' Guild and the Militia barracks. It appeared to be morning. What was he doing here? And why couldn't he move his arms? He glanced down and an overwhelming impression of pink struck him. Bad news was beginning to overwhelm his capacity to cope with it, and so the fact that he was wearing a pink dress was almost easy to absorb. Being tied to a post, however, seemed a little more important.
Eloy struggled for a little, trying to ease himself out of his bonds; but unfortunately for him, Lynien was very good with knots, and he made no progress. It also made his head pound, so he relaxed and started to hope that Odius might track him down soon.
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Odius Spearfoot glanced up and down one of the nameless (or at least unpronounceable) streets of Lizard Town, and moved on. He knew his lord was missing somewhere in the city after his stag night, and had a fairly good idea what sort of thing might have happened to him; but he didn't know Gorfang and Lynien, and his attempts to second-guess them were not going at all well. Muttering to himself, and pausing only to kick a beggar slumped in a nearby doorway, he hurried off again.
Gorfang woke early, completely unbothered by the heroic quantities of alcohol he had consumed the night before. He made a hearty breakfast, and then collected Shamlakh for a walk into town. Lynien emerged to join them, suggesting that they could Scry the lucky bridegroom first to see how he was getting on. Gorfang liked this idea, so they used a scroll and observed Eloy from afar. They could see he was awake, and so they strolled into the city, heading for Wargate street.
Two hours after his unhappy awakening, Eloy lifted his aching head to see a youth walking up the street towards him. The boy was dressed like a townsman, and had a bulging sack in one hand and a pole over the other shoulder. The pole supported an assortment of military boots of various ages, and showed him to be a cobbler's boy on his way to the barracks. Slowly, the youth walked towards Eloy, evidently half-asleep, only noticing him when he was quite close. He stopped, and eyed the helpless assassin for some time. Then he began sniggering, and carried on his way, giggling. Eloy maintained as dignified a silence as was possible in the circumstances.
In the last half an hour or so, he'd felt two seperate scrying observations, and had cause to hope that rescue might be at hand. It didn't look as if it was going to be in time, however, as the night and day watches were changing at the militia barracks, and a squad of soldiers had emerged, heading down to the Wargate to relieve the night watch. There was no chance of them missing him, and they gathered in an appreciative arc, whooping and whistling at this 'pretty young thing' pinned helplessly for their pleasure. Eloy rose magnificently above the embarrassment, carrying his situation off with remarkable panache for a man tied up in a pink dress, and in the end the soldiers sauntered off, blowing him kisses and making last-minute suggestive comments.
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Although Eloy didn't know it, his fate hung in the balance in a race against time. While Gorfang, Lynien and Shamlakh sauntered casualy directly to his location, Odius had returned in failure to the Temple of Sabath, where Crastinuc the priest had scried successfully for their master and despatched the crestfallen Reaver across the city to collect him.
Odius won the race, though only just, and Gorfang, Eloy and Lynien reached the scene as the dark paladin was cutting Eloy's bonds. "Stop!" barked Gorfang, "This man is here for very good reasons!" Eloy laughed, and introduced them to each other while Shamlakh widdled down his leg. Odius gestured to Gorfang, asking to have a quiet word, and the orc followed him a little way off. The reaver turned to speak to Gorfang; "You've had your fun," he said reasonably, "but we really should let him go now. Today's the day, and we don't want to make an enemy of his prespective bride, do we?" Gorfang chuckled and shrugged.
Much later there was a knock on the door of Lynien's room at Southwold, and a deadpan Eloy handed her a hanger supporting a torn, stretched but washed pink dress and a pair of clean, folded female pants, before returning to his room to prepare for the wedding. His training had left him skilled in the arts of disguise; now, he used those skills to add subtle touches of enhancement to his appearance. Dressed in his finest, he met the other two in the hall. Lynien had changed into an atypicical dress of a very flattering cut, and used a touch of magic to recolour her hair in a pale golden-blonde. Gorfang was fundamentaly unchanged, with the exception of the pair of pants which he was wearing on his head. "Orcish morning suit," he explained blandly, as the three set off for the Temple of Sabath.
The ceremony was scheduled for midnight, and Crastinuc officiated, garbed in his best black robes. The structure of the ceremony was very much flavoured by the ethos of the devious, untrustworthy god that Eloy served, but Sashia appeared unconcerned by the massive loopholes it left in Eloy's vows. She had explained beforehand that she had some words she wished to insert into the ritual. Eloy had accepted this at the time, but now a tiney warning bell went off at the back of his head as Crastinuc looked to the bride to speak her piece.
First, the young witch turned gracefully around three times widdershins. Then she stepped up close to Eloy, gazing directly into his eyes as she spoke in a clear, ringing voice.
"I ask you once, by Earth, Air, Fire and Water - are you my husband?"
"Yes," said Eloy, but his mind was racing. What? He could feel the energy gathering as the ritual words wove and twined into the ceremony.
"I ask you twice, by Earth, Air, Fire and Water - are you my husband?"
"Yes."
"I ask you thrice and for all, by Earth, Air, Fire and Water - are you my husband?"
"Yes." said Eloy, with a sinking feeling.
Nothing visible happened, but a ripple of sensation passed up and down Eloy's body, a shimmer of sensation, gathering strength as it flowed and bringing with it a strong feeling of vitality and well-being. Finally, it gathered and settled in his groin, leaving him feeling strong and virile, soaked into him and faded.
After a short pause, Crastinuc continued with the ceremony, binding the pair as man and wife. Eloy couldn't shake the feeling that the priest was a bit belated in this, and that the bonding had already been done.
The wedding night went well. Very well; better even than Eloy's considerable ego had expected; and he was bright and chipper for days afterwards, the sensation of well-being lingering long after the initial night. Only Sashia's enigmatic smile left him wondering what, in fact, she had done that night...
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