B.T.V. -- Session 05 Epilogue: Marillion's Eve

Marillion’s Eve



Asher Zi and the immortal newcomer Axewing strolled out of the Wayward Winds Inn and headed south, toward the Ab Gate and their appointment with the Brunya and members of his gang they had met earlier and, after a brief conflict, had decided to join hands to act against Peloi’s Raiders, who were a plague to the Tribesmen and an annoyance to Zi’s acquaintance Elric el’Nibone, who sought to ascend to the position of Dragon Heir to the Throne of the Draegeran Empire. Axewing peppered Zi with what the latter considered a series of intelligent questions, though Asher had fewer answers than he would like, given how new he himself was to the floating island of Scythe, high above the continent of Banners.


Asher still had trouble adjusting to the float that this great floating island was as much of a small town as it was anything else. He credited Axewing’s exponentially greater experience over his long life for his new friend’s ready acceptance of such matters. Zi estimated the population of the island at perhaps 1,000, from what they saw few of them humans.


Passing by the great Anceer Gate, the largest of the skyship portals into Scythe, Axewing approached a Teckla woman of perhaps 1,000 or 1,200 years, and inquired if she knew of Sammisen Tower, which Ghilong of the East Wind had gifted to Zi, though with the admonition he must hold it.


The Teckla was friendly enough, but suggested she knew little of the tower, beyond that it had been unoccupied for some time, which from the Draegeran viewpoint could mean hundreds of years.


As they neared Ab Gate, a figure dropped from a tree, brandishing a longsword, perhaps six feet eight inches tall—the same as Axewing, Zi realized, with black hair streaked with white and, peculiarly, greenish skin.


“Ah, Easterners in Scythe, without papers or a permit,” the Draegeran challenged. “It would seem you have managed to evade the teleport blocks around Scythe. I work for the Master of Scythe.”


Axewing observed that must be Yevien e’N’varr, and the Draegeran allowed that was correct.


The Draegeran, who spoke mostly in a sarcastic tone, so much so Asher wondered if that was his natural way of speaking, demanded their names, and Axewing questioned his authority to do so.


“You seem to be perplexed as to why I would ask you. I am of the Pennant Compact, Yevien n’V’arr’s special forces. I am Shagaroth.”


Axewing allowed he had flown to Scythe on his mount, which was true enough, and that he was an ardent supporter of Elric’s claim to the Imperial throne, and that they simply sought to depart Scythe.. Zi, after giving his name, decided to give truth a try as well. “I was brought here by the Dragon of the East Wind,” he admitted frankly.


“I am surprised,” Shagaroth confessed. “Perhaps it would be best if you leave.”


The guardian departed, and Asher observed he would have looked about to see if the green Draegeran had any reinforcements nearby. Um, thoughtfully, said, “Two more green ones were on the mountain.”


As they come to the Ab Gate, Asher hears a low rumble, but can’t determine where it comes from. Then they meet another Pennant, this one just as green as the first, or even more so, since the colour dripped from his form and his sword, and with a bald head, something he hadn’t seen before in a Draegeran.


“You are wishing to deport,” the Pennant announced, in a voice free of obvious emotion, unlike his sarcastic colleague they had met earlier. He had received a report from Anceer Gate of Axewing’s arrival, he added, inquiring of the human’s winged mount.


“A Gryfon, it is called,” Axewing said. “That is its species. It is the king of its species.”


“And how will you leave?” the Pennant asked of Asher.


“I am the mount,” Um revealed.


“Ah. A drake. You have conquered a drake.”


“Not so much conquered,” Zi admitted.


Axewing calls his mount defiant, a huge avian, whitish in colour with a blue crest, though most obvious was its savage-looking beak.


Um transforms into his natural form, and after Zi clambers aboard, still unused to the procedure, the drake dropped through the Gate, folding back its wings for a high-speed dive. Asher was grateful no one could see the expression on his face, though that gratitude was minor compared to his uneasiness, a polite label for fear. He trusted Um, but trust went only so far three-quarters of a mile above Banners and getting closer every second.


Still far above the ground, though, Umm unfurled his wings in steps, and began to soar. Defiant, meanwhile, leapt into the skate before plummeting through the gate with Axewing aboard, who was much more comfortable in such situations.


Both mounts seemed to take it in their heads to test the other’s abilities. Asher was no expert judge, but believed they were about even in the end, though perhaps Defiant edged out Um.


Axewing swings out toward the coast in search of the Brunya and his gang.


“There are objects in the water,” Defiant observes. “Perhaps they are cities below the surface. What is it you are looking for?”


“Tribesmen,” Axewing replied.


“A barren place for Tribesmen to live,” Defiant noted, for below the wind had swept whatever soil might have been atop the bare rock that now was the dominant feature of the coastline.


Zi, meanwhile, after a glance at the underside of Scythe, observed woods and swamps to the south on Banners proper, and on the opposite coast of Banners, perhaps 20 miles away, can see a community of some sorts, which Umm informs him is the village of Tynk.


Asher then realizes that Axewing has landed perhaps three-quarters of a mile to the south, and was moving among the rocks. Spotting chasms leading below, and tiny figures moving along them single-file, the surface, Zi directs Umm to land, and after an abrupt halt, the drake unable to find purchase at first in the bare stone and sliding before finding a clawhold, almost throwing Zi, but he managed to hang on. Then the drake takes bipedal form again. They move into the narrow chasms and begin to search. The Brunya had told them to find him below Hanging Rock but, with no knowledge of local geography, Zi was stymied as to where that might be.


“I hear things ahead,” Umm stated. “It sounds like sharpening. A grinder of some kind.”


They came to a sharp bend and Umm, looking around, observed, “It is a narrows.” Umm had taken the lead at first but now Zi did so. Umm’s companionship had been the gift of Ghilong, and his parents had taught him not to be careless with gifts. Also, had spotted a figure jumping across the top of the narrow defile.


Zi directs Umm to return to a spot where he can transform, and then fly above. A minute later, Asher began to move down the defile, and was unsurprised but still pained when an arrow struck his right leg, sticking into the calf.


“I seem a magnet for missiles,” he quips to himself before he begins hobbling, as quickly as he can manage, toward the far end of the narrows. His new ectobracer had failed its first test, but nothing was certain, he knew. The archer tries again, but shooting downward is tricky, Zi assumes, and the missile misses.


He emerges into a narrow canyon, the walls 40 or 50 feet tall, and striated with shelves and ledges. Asher sticks close to the wall underneath the archer, and edges up the canyon. Suddenly, another Draegeran appears, wielding a longsword but with a brace of pistols on his hips. Zi draws his sword and his opponent seems to invite a fight, but Asher worries doing so will expose him to the archer above, so instead he released a ghostcharge, emerging from the palm of his upraised left hand and leaving a blue streak, sharp as a ruler’s edge, in its trail, though it narrowly missed the Draegeran, who Zi assumed was one of Peloi’s Raiders. The raider takes exception, drawing one of his pistols but before he can fire, a second streak of light leaps from Zi’s hand to strike the enemy on the left side of his chest, causing a painful wound, but not so much so as to take the Draegeran out of the fight.


Then Zi realizes a second raider is sprinting his way, and hurls a Claw at him. Despite the snap throw, the Claw flew true and pierced the raider’s chest, coming to a rest in its heart, and he fell dead.


Axewing, meanwhile, has approached the same canyon from the south, and Defiant, overhead, screeches to warn him of a female raider atop one wall. She had a strange metal left arm, a chopping cutlass held by it, and on her left hip was a holstered pistol. Defiant lands, the buffeting of its wings knocked the woman off the top to a narrow shelf 10 or 20 feet below. Slightly wounded, she crawls to a wider portion. Axewing virtually floats up the canyon wall to her, invoking some form of decanting, and slams his axe into her, causing a grievous wound in her abdomen. Then, in almost the same instant, he cuts her in half at the waist, and the two halves of her body tumble to the canyon floor below.


Asher’s initial opponent fires at him, and what appears to be a miniature spear flies by the startled Zi. The human replies with a left to right slash across the raider’s chest, cutting deeply into the muscles.


The Draegeran makes a desperate effort to bring his sword down on Zi’s head, but somehow, the blade twists in his hand and instead meets the rising ectobracer on Asher’s left wrist, sticking firmly to it. Simultaneously, Zi attempts a thrust but is thrown off by Draegeran being dragged slightly aside by the bracer’s actions, but an instant later spins his sword around to cut into the raider’s sword arm, finishing off his opponent.


The archer, however, still lurked above, and an arrow glances off Zi’s shoulder, causing a scratch. Zi released a ghostcharge, which zips to the archer’s head, singeing one side of his face and causing him to drop below a rock. Asher left him to Umm, and soon after the raider tumbles down to the canyon floor, followed by the winged drake, who again transforms. Zi quickly removes the arrow from his calf, managing not to further injure himself, and bandages his leg.


Together, they move down the canyon while Axewing, at the far end, sees another raider emerge from an opening in a wall about halfway down, and then spots another at the end of the shelf his is on. He entered the dark cave and decants a light to illuminate his path, extinguishing one to alight another as he progressed inward. He doesn’t go far before he sees a large creature with fur on its head and shoulders, appearing much like a bear, sitting unmoving against a wall.


Outside, the raider who had emerged from the midway opening popped up and loosed an arrow at Zi, but that missed, as did others. Meanwhile, Zi released ghostcharge after ghostcharge, whittling away at the archer. Finally, as Asher nears the rock the raider has been using for cover, the Draegeran leaps atop the stone, sword and knife in his hands, and tosses the latter at Zi, but that misses. Asher begins to empathize with his opponent, who surely is struggling desperately to stay alive.


That doesn’t stop the human from sweeping his sword at the legs of the Draegeran as he jumps toward Zi, slashing narrow wounds into both, but then rather than finish off the enemy, Asher smashes one a hammerhead quillon into the raider’s face, knocking him out for the time being.


Zi takes a few steps into the midway opening, but wise Umm cautions, “Is it wise to continue alone?”


Asher nods, and instead heads down the canyon to where he sees the gigantic gryphon at rest.





Axewing, inside the cave at the far end, realizes the Brunya before him is unconscious, but a Leonaedes stands nearby as well, casually holding a polearm on his shoulders and behind his maned head.


When Axewing relates that the raiders outside have been dealt with, the Tribesman is pleased. The immortal heals the Brunya, and the Leonades takes several steps back, appearing startled by the decanting. Axewing shakes the sleeping bear, usually not a wise move, but he rewarded by the Brunya emitting a snort and then opening its eyes. “Draegeran!” the Brunya growls and starts to roll toward Axewing while also starting to rise up, but the immortal sets the shaft of his axe firmly on the cave flood to stop the Tribesman.


“He is not a Draegeran,” the Leonaedes says. The Brunya seems to accept this, and turns to the lion-like man. “Ah,” the Brunya said. “You are still alive. How do we know he’s not Draegeran?”


“He doesn’t smell like a Draegeran,” the Leonaedes replies.


“Would you remove your helmet so I can be certain?” the Brunya asked Axewing, not brusquely, and the immortal obliged. “Well, what do you know? A Draegeran-sized human.”


The Brunya blames a fallen boulder for knocking him out, and kicks at it. The stone didn’t move, but the Brunya did look pained. The Leonaedes pointed to a nearby rock as the actual culprit.


Axewing chooses to leave the cave.


“We will join you,” the Brunya announces. “There are Draegerans about. You can’t be too careful.”


Back in the canyon, they meet Umm and Zi, who have just arrived near Defiant. “This creature is unable to transform,” the drake observed to Asher.


The Tribesmen introduce themselves, the Leonaedes named Aegon and the Brunya Kawworn, the latter announcing he is king of his people. Asher accepts this, given the formidable armour on the Brunya. Then he mentions the unconscious raider, who could be revived for questioning.


“But what of the Chamber?” Kawworn asked.


“What do you know of the Chamber?” Aegon asked suspiciously.


“Nothing,” the Brunya answered. “I misspoke. I misspoke, I tell you!”


Oegan seems taken with the nearby Defiant, who after all is half lionesque. The Brunya, however, seems slightly concerned by its proximity, as if he wonders if the giant avian will challenge him.


“You will pay me obeisance,” Defiant tells the two Tribesmen, but they only exchange confused looks. “You will pay me obeisance? You will not pay me obeisance.”


“I am a king,” Kawworn states. “Can you not tell?”


Then, after a moment’s consideration, he adds, “{Perhaps a fight later in the day would be best. I am the king of the Brunya. My people, those I lead here, are inside the Chamber. It’s a place of mystery. We think it is cursed.”


“Your people should not have entered,” Oegan retorted. “It is a place of mystery and magic.”


The Brunya moves up the chamber to the opening in the wall and disappears within. Moments later, all hear the echo of a challenging road and Oegan hurries after Kawworn.


Asher decides to follow as well, and Umm accompanies him, but Axewing is uninterested and decides to remain outside. Zi supposes an immortal would have faced many such situations and could reasonably be presumed to be bored by them. Inside the opening is a campfire, which must have come from a decanting, since it could not have been laid and ignited so quickly and, even if that was possible, where had the wood come from. Ahead lies another such fire.


“They leave a path for us,” Umm observes. “The fires cannot be missed.”


They follow a serpentine course through the tunnel, and then catch up to Oegan, who has leaped across a cascade of fine sand, coursing down a wall and across the cave floor before disappearing somewhere. Anyone can tell at a glance this is more dangerous than it might appear, a point proven shortly after.


Zi stumbles at the far edge as he jumps the first such cascade, and would have been drawn into the dry stream had Oegan not saved him. Umm joins Zi a moment later, and offers to throw Zi across a second cascade. Hardly a dignified choice, Asher thinks, but he agrees and manages to land adroitly. He then closes with Oegan, while Umm returns to the canyon.


“There is much to explore within,” the drake informs the immortal. “It is dangerous. There are sand cascades inside that can consume.”


“Am I needed?” Axewing inquires.


“I would say yes,” and they enter the opening together, soon catching up to the others. When they join, Brunya is telling Oegan, “This is a place of your people, and this place is a death trap.”


“It is not meant to be easy,” the Oegan answers. “I will show you the way.”


The Leonaedes, to Asher’s eye, in fact almost slips into a cascade at one point, but manages to make the far side, where the cave opens into a hall of sorts.





The Brunya, taking a slightly different path while watched by Zi, gets across in three easy jumps, so Asher decides to follow the same route. But on the second jump, he almost slips down into the fine sand. Though he saves himself and leaps again, he ends up on the edge again, slipping downward. The Brunya grabs him in and pulls him free, but Axewing, following, ends up halfway into the fine cascade. The Brunya and Asher both grab at him and try to pull him out, but the immortal is even heavier than he appears, and Zi finds himself sinking into the morass himself.


Oegan hurries over, just as Umm, who had followed Zi, lands on all three, slipping into the sand himself. The drake transforms, clawing his way out and carrying Asher with him, while Axewing summons a mighty green axe, if axe it was, that pulled him out. The immortal leapt upon the axe, which floated on its side, and rode it. Asher, confounded, could think of no description to fit this action, but he got the sense the weapon was also a sentient being of some kind, and presumably yet another Great Weapon.


“You made it,” Oegan observed. “What is that wondrous thing? It looks ancient.”

“It is a weapon,” Axewing answers. “It is actually a lifeform.”


They cross the hall, the ruins of great columns on either side, and enter below a portico, where they emerge into what appears to be a crypt chamber, the floors covered in mounds of Imperials, the occasional chest and at least one book. Steps led up 12 or 15 feet to a platform containing a golden tomb.


“Behold!” Oegan declared. “The Chamber of my people. Once we were mighty, and my people were close to being accepted as noble. But then we fell.”


Then they saw a female raider atop the platform, prying at the tomb’s lid with her sword, while two of her male colleagues stood on the far right side, not far from the entrance, seemingly frozen in place.


“Don’t move!” the two male raiders shout, not an order but a warning, but Axewing’s Great Axe swung toward them and began moving that way, and the immortal demands their surrender. He and his companions then see a serpentine shape moving through the gold mounds, and Zi, frowning, throws all three of his Claws, but he misses the monster.


Before he can do so, though, a land orca emerges from the gold, a huge creature half orca, half crocodile or alligator, leaping toward Axewing’s chest in an attack. But instead of its mighty teeth cutting through the immortal, it is somehow absorbed into the starry field at the top of Zi’s breastplate, and, contorted, it disappears.


Zi recalls his Claws, and they slide back into his right pauldron.


One of the two raiders watching from the side, a member of the House of the Dragon, dropped his sword in astonishment, unaware at the shame of doing so, and he stares at Axewing, who picks up the sword and hurls it across the Chamber.


“Of what House are you, Nobleman?” the other male raider inquires.


“Disarm yourself,” Axewing orders, and the raider puts his sword and pistol on a nearby shelf.


Kawworn, meanwhile, is also staring at Axewing. Then, the woman on the platform leaps onto the coins below and starts running toward the entrance. Oegan shouts, “Stop! You will be eaten!”


That halts her not at all, but Zi, not wishing to kill her, instead releases a ghostlight charge that streaks to her. She is surprised, and comes to a halt briefly as Asher and Axewing block her path.


“You fools!” she calls to her comrades.


She then attempts to leap up and between Asher and Axewing. Zi sweeps for her legs this time, allowing the elevated immortal the upper portion of her body to attack. Both strike home, Axewing’s axe spike stabbing her.


“Let me go, you fools!” she pleaded. “This place is cursed.”


She throws her weapon away at Axewing’s demand, then he moves aside, and she runs through the entrance. One of her comrades, the non-Dragon, casually does the same a few moments later.


Axewing, Zi and Kawworn then join Oegan atop the platform. Banners are carved into the walls behind the crypt, while a sword is engraves atop its lid.


“Whose tomb is this?” Asher asks.


“It belongs to one of the Marillion,” Oegan answers. Zi recalls some of the information he got from the Amberites and recalls this is the principal family of the Veer, now known as Draegerans, and he mentions this.


The Dragon raider, having given Asher his parole, attempts to leave the Chamber, but Umm pushes him back.


“You, the one in the green!” the Dragon shouts. Asher tells him he must remain until they all leave.


Oegan says his people have watched over this Chamber for an untold time, depositing gold in it over the years, though he knows not why.


Umm relates that the Marillions had 12 members, and some had departed for other worlds over time.


“I do not sense there is anything inside,” he says of the tomb. Asher doesn’t doubt him, but still feels they should lift the lid off, to see what might happen.


They attempt to do so, but the lid resists their efforts, and Oegan suggests that perhaps it was never meant to be opened.


Zi had not wanted to bother Elric, busy with his own struggles, needlessly, but felt strongly the Melnibonean should come to the tomb, and so reaches out with his mind. His effort falters at first, but then he makes contact.


Elric is hesitant at first, but Asher assures him he believes the matter is urgent, and moments later he appears by teleport. Zi introduces the newcomer to everyone, and Elric recognizes Axewing, calling him “Renaissance,” though the immortal demurs, saying Axewing is sufficient.


“But you are maimed,” Elric notes. “I suspect there is something in this that connects you to me.”


Axewing relates that, before coming to Axildusk, he has slain Elric’s cousin Yrkoon, but at the same instant his left arm had been shorn from his body by the sword Mournblade, and the limb could not be restored.


“I thank you for the service you have done my people,” Elric told the immortal. “He was the vanguard of Darkness.”


The Melnibonean then inspected the tomb and the sword carved on its lid. “It is not the blade I have known, nor its sister blade,” he announced. “It speaks of the Marillion, most certainly.”


The members of that family were as varied as those of Amber, he continued. The sword, however, narrowed down who it might be.


“What will this first family be to you?” Axewing asked.


“It is difficult to say. I think, perhaps, that the time has come for them to make an appearance.”


Axewing agreed, saying the first family of the Veer were sure to be needed by Elric, given the situation on Axildusk. Struck by a thought, he added that the person in the tomb might instead be someone associated with the Marillion and mentioned the name “Corum.”


“He is another aspect of my own nature,” Elric commented, but he believed they could co-exist on the same world. “Perhaps it is wise to think of him first.”


Elric then utters an invocation of some kind, Zi recognizing only the name “Corum” among the words, while Axewing draws his own blood to contribute to the decanting.

Asher summons ghostlight to his hand, in case it is needed, though Elric contends it would not aid him.


Then Zi notices that someone is spying on the scene through the Ghostlight, and sees Doctor Doom. Asher decides to maintain the ghostlight regardless.


Then (section revised by Doom, Protocol 1784-2u710.)


Elric makes a sorcerous attempt to call forth the Marillion, naming each of them. Two individuals appear, one named Annatar and the other Eve. The former is unarmed, and has a hint of Darkness about him, while the latter carries a sword, and seems more warrior-like.


“I thank you for hearing my words,” Elric tells them. ‘I did call on other members of your family as well.”


“What are your intentions?” Annatar asked. “Only one of us can remain, otherwise the Noble Thoughts will be displeased. It is something to do with the Runestaff. I am happy to leave you here.”


The words are spoken to Eve, who seems suspicious. They talk back and forth in less than flattering terms, and then Eve invites her fellow Marillion to depart.


Elric declares a decision must be made before anyone leaves the Chamber.


“We must know it, and the world must be told of it.”


Eve tells Annatar he must tell her his reasons for leaving her in Axildusk, but he demurs. Annatar refused and leaves. Eve, momentarily, appears relieved.


Eve tells Axewing, who she seems to know, “You speak of the dragons. They have come to the Array and shown their power. Colour is considerably weaker.”


The immortal seemed to understand, and Elric, but Zi felt only confusion.


She then tells Axewing, “You are one we thought had been made desolate.” The immortal had somehow replaced the Colour Orange with Light, but she didn’t know how this could happen.


She then turns to Asher and states he, too, seems to have a connection to colour. He still doesn’t’ understand what that means.


Dr. Doom asks Axewing, “Have you met the other Obsidian,” a group associated with the Outremere. “There is one in peril.”


That one was Sybermane, who had been left weakened by the existence of Asher Zi. Axewing noted he was determined to help Asher Zi however he could.


Dr. Doom goes on to mention that only one of the Amethyst was in Axildusk, “weakened by his loneliness.”


He continues, “The Rakshahasa have been obliterated. All this is left of them is on this world. All that is left of them is the Khan.”


Eve tells Elric she wishes to speak privately with the Melnibonean, and on their way out, she asks Asher and Axewing to tarry a few minutes in the Chamber to allow them to do so.

Transcribed by R.Perry