Ashia's Sword

Time passed, and no progress appeared to be made in reducing the citadel of Varkar. Finally, the adventurers wearied of waiting, and requested of Gozan that he pull his forces back so as to allow them to attempt communication. Orders were given, and the battered siege engines and weary troops moved out of range of the walls.

Walking forward through the lines, the three companions approached the walls until they were within hailing range of the strange creatures on the walls. Here they got their first good look at the Githyanki, and strange creatures they were indeed. Tall, taller even than the burly Tellaran, but thin to the point of gauntness; their skin and faces mutated far from their distant human origins by some unimaginable influences. Ornate, baroque armour and ornamentation, fiercely individual, was mixed with weapons of peculiar design and obvious power. Bows and two-handed swords predominated; certain individuals had swords clearly made of some form of magical silver - some mark of rank.

Halting at the walls, the companions shouted up at the watching Githyanki, indicating that they had come to parlay. Looks of skepticism were their only answer. Then Hildraft repeated the sentence in fluent Githyanki. Some astonishment was clear above, and the leader of the group - a holder of the silver sword - called back, "You speak our language well," he complemented the dwarf. Hildraft called up once again that they wished to discuss an agreement. "What can you have that we could want?" asked the Githyanki, scornfully.

Surya yelled up; "We know what you want, we know why you can't find it, and we can get it for you." A look of surprise passed over the knight's face, and then he vanished - appearing instantly before the three adventurers. "Go on," he said, as if nothing had interrupted his sentence.

"There is a vault within the citadel," the Tellaran said, "you can't open it. The sword you've come for is in there. We can get it out for you." The knight eyed them narrowly. "I will take you to Ruruk," he decided. "She will choose whether we deal with you." He vanished again, disconcertingly. Seconds later, the great doors of the citadel ground open, and he stepped through the portal accompanied by ten warrior Githyanki. Following him through, Hildraft - spurred by his experience of the Fae Mhor - asked, "You're not another race ruled by a woman, are you?" in his idiomatic Githyanki.

"We serve the Queen Vlaakith, yes," answered the knight. "How do you come to speak our language so well?" he continued. "I drank the blood of a dragon," said Hildraft.

The knight stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the dwarf. "You are Ta'nara?" he asked urgently. Hildraft wondered what was coming. "Yes..." he said cautiously. The knight offered his hand in an oddly human gesture; Hildraft carefully took it. "I greet you, Brother," said the Githyanki warrior formally, "I, too, am Ta'nara. My name is Kazoth gi'Baskhun." Then he turned and continued to lead the group through the ruins of Varkar's palace.

Last time they'd been here, there had already been two large holes smashed in the walls by the Dragon's agony as they slew him. Now there were signs of more damage, inflicted this time by the siege engines of Gozan Vraspan. What mainly took their attention as they entered the Dark Beast's throne chamber was the large number of Githyanki warriors moving around - but even more so the five red dragons lounging comfortably on the vast mound of treasure left by the late unlamented Varkar Barduric. These were conversing calmly with the Gith warriors, and there was clearly an agreement between them.

Buoyed by his success with the Githyanki, Hildraft spoke to one of the dragons, greeting it in its' own tongue (which he had in fact been able to speak before receiving the power of the dragon's blood). The reaction was rather different, however. "Why do you profane our tongue with your puny mouth, worm?" rumbled the fifty-foot reptile aggressively. Kazoth leaned in close to the dwarf. "Ta'nara you may be," he whispered, "but tact you do not have." Hastily he hustled the group out of the chamber and into the north wing of the palace.

As they reached the vault where they'd left the pick of the Dragon's treasure, they discovered a large party of Githyanki gathered around the door. A strong body of warriors were waiting alertly; several obvious wizards were glaring at the mighty door with clear irritation. The evidence of that irritation was visible as smears of metal and scattered scorch marks here and there on the door, where the Githyanki had tried to force a way in.

In front of all of them was a tall, proud warrior figure, which though Githyanki was clearly female. Kazoth introduced her as Ruruk the Swordsearcher, commanding this retrieval mission, and she listened carefully to what the group had to say. The fact that they had deduced that the Githyanki's Dimension Slide ability had not availed to safely reach the inside of the vault both persauded her that they knew what they were talking about, and embarrassed her - it seemed several warriors had been lost proving this. When they made their proposition - a trade of their provision of the sword in return for the Githyanki's assistance removing their pick of treasure to some other location - she demanded proof of their abilities.

Hildraft requested a depiction of the sword they were seeking, and one of the Gith wizards used Polymorph on some nearby debris to create a facsimile of the lost weapon. The dwarf then went ethereal, and stepped through the wall into the vault. Outside, Sack and Surya noted the gasps of surprise from the Gith wizards, and concluded that the vault somehow resisted their attempts to use the same technique.

Inside, Hildraft found the vault very much as he'd left it - strung thickly with razorsharp fine wires - with only the scattered bits of Githwarrior on the floor showing any change. Scanning the racks of Varkar's sword collection, he soon located the sword he sought; glittering with an otherworldly silver sheen in the darkness, it bore the label "Ashia's Sword". It appeared remakably similar - given that no two Gith weapons they'd seen so far were identical - to the two-handed weapon riding across Ruruk's back.

He returned and reported what he'd found. As he shifted back from the Ethereal plane, he caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye of ...something... moving above and behind him. The suggestion of ghostly wings? He couldn't tell. It was gone in an instant; and no-one on the material side had seen anything.

Surya now inserted the Key, and the vault door slowly yawned open; within, they could see the deadly wires coiling and retracting into the walls. Stepping in, Hildraft strode across the vault towards the rack he'd located, and the Githyanki sword.

When he was ten feet from it, suddenly four Githyanki were standing in front of him. Three knights faced him, their weird silver swords drawn; Ruruk was beyond them facing the sword. She extended her arm, and the sword leaped from the rack into her hand. She turned, her strange eyes burning with triumph.

"Get them."

Instantly, the Githyanki warriors outside the vault began to draw their swords; as did Sack. Kazoth, to everyone's amazment and the Githwarriors' obvious disgust, drew his Silver Sword and stepped across to stand with the companions. "I must stand with my brother Ta'nara," he explained, his face twisted in anguish. Surya jammed the Key back into the vault door and twisted it savagely, yelling to Hildraft: "Run!"

With the full power of his Boots of Speed, the dwarf leaped across the vault in a blur, frantically dodging the trapwires as they snaked across, closing the spaces off. Behind him, the four Githyanki - and Ashia's Sword - vanished into thin air.

A devastating blast of blazing daylight filled the corridor as Sack unleashed the power of the Blade of the Sun's Sunburst power; the front Githwarriors stumbled, dazzled, and Sack wrought havoc among them, slaying several knights. Surya turned and drew his swords as Hildraft came barrelling out of the closing vault, and the four ripped into the Githwarriors with a will. Several went down in a few seconds, and the rest vanished abruptly. Surya kicked their swords into the vault as the door closed, grinning wickedly.

Turning to their unexpected ally, the adventurers looked at him quizzically. Kazoth hung his head, a picture of misery, explaining that he couldn't allow a fellow Ta'nara to be betrayed in such away, and that he was now outcast; even were he to return home with the four swords in the vault, his word would be naught to that of a Swordsearcher, and he would die. "You might as well stay with us then," said Hildraft, and the renegade knight agreed.

Moving cautiously through the palace, the party reached the treasure chamber, where they found the Swordsearcher waiting for them. Negotiations were opened again, and - working from a strong position with four Silver Swords to bargain with - the party secured their assistance in transporting the treasure. Now, they were put to thinking of a safe haven. Kobur they discounted; the gold would be safe there, but dwarves being dwarves they'd never see it again. Finally the answer came: Khundrakar.

So the five mighty dragons ferried sacks of swords and treasure across the night skies, depositing them in the abandoned fortress of Durgeddin the Black. When all was done, Hildraft wove the mightiest wards and protections he could around them, and returned to the citadel.

Meanwhile, Surya had managed to find the item Gozan had asked him to retrieve; a rather unimpressive looking sceptre, clearly magical. When they'd discussed it, Gozan had said it wasn't going to threaten the party; what it would do was give him an "edge" over the other Kin, allowing him to sieze control of more of the Dragon's empire. This, he'd said, would stabilize the area rather than the opposite. Surya was inclined to believe him.

Now was the time to give up the swords to the Githyanki, and keep their bargain, but the heroes were in no mood to be reasonable. Instead, Sack prepared himself with his thieves' equipment and Hildraft's Silence and Tongues spells and - with the aid of his Spider Climb ring - wallcrawled his way into the Githyanki's base in the west wing of the palace. He soon located Ashia's sword, guarded by a circle of ten knights, swords drawn, facing outwards, ceaselessly vigilant. Hanging over their heads, Sack forced down a chuckle and waited for Hildraft's promised diversion...