Adventure Log, Session 26 Trying to Get Nathan by Sneaking into Isleton
General Summary
Something was approaching. Actually, a pair of somethings, from the north and from the west. One sounded like it was forcing its way through the underbrush. The other they couldn’t hear, now that it wasn’t hooting.
Elitheris grabbed some arrows from her quiver, readying them in her bow hand, and nocking one. Mr. Wiggles started barking, and she grabbed the collar of his armor to keep him from running off. She didn’t want him taking something on where they couldn’t get to him.
Eykit pulled out his daggers, nervously flipping them from icepick grip to sword grip, and back again, over and over as he waited.
Almë and Taid both started casting spells: Almë to set up a trap using the grasses and weeds, Taid to make his weapon dangerously cold.
Something burst into view, human sized, wearing chainmail and wielding a sword. Its skin looked flayed, the muscle fibers appearing to vibrate. It was one of those Shard-enhanced zombie things, and it was running straight at Almë, who stood alone by the carriage house. Everyone else was still by the workshop, dozens of meters away. At first, only Almë could see it; there was too much underbrush for the others to get a glimpse of it.
Then everyone could see it. Eykit stepped behind Elitheris, peering from behind her. He wasn’t a front line fighter, no matter how good he might be with his knives. It just wasn’t his style. Mr. Wiggles, leaping wildly, got loose from Elitheris’ grip, and took off running towards the loping creature, barking all the way.
The Shardzombie stepped into the area that Almë’s spell of Tangled Growth had affected. The grass blades bent and twisted around its legs, the weeds grasping at its legs with their branches. It tore through them, but they slowed it down. It had to work to move forward. It attacked the Elf with a strong downward cut with its sword, which Almë parried, but the blade dug a notch into the wood.
Almë, with a flourish of his staff, knocked the sword out of the creature’s hand. It flew off, tumbling and sparkling in the dim moonlight, and landed in some bushes.
Mr. Wiggles was almost to the creature, his mouth agape to bite into its leg, when Almë’s spell caused the grasses to wrap themselves around the dog’s legs. Mr. Wiggles yelped in surprise and fear, his forward momentum suddenly halted.
Elitheris drew the bow back to her ear, letting the arrow fly. It flew true, burying itself in the creature’s ribcage.
Taid completed his spell of Icy Weapon, and frost appeared along the blade, wisps of chilled mist drifting down from it. He ran towards the animated monster, trying to get to Almë as quickly as he could.
Almë swung his staff in a low attack, trying to knock the creature off of its feet, but it sidestepped the strike.
The Shardzombie was engaged in combat with Almë, so Eykit seized his chance and ran towards it, hopefully to get a flanking attack. Mr. Wiggles, struggling with the grasses, tried to bite the undead foe, but the entangling plants made it difficult for him to move properly, and his jaws snapped together on nothing.
The creature, weaponless, grabbed Almë’s upper arms, perhaps to pull the Elf apart, or maybe throw him. And then another arrow, loosed by Elitheris, thudded into its chest two centimeters from the previous one. Almë could see the stringy flesh shifting disturbingly around the arrow shafts.
Almë slammed his staff into one of the creature’s arms, forcing it to let go. The forearm looked broken, and the monster appeared to have trouble controlling it. A quick glance over his shoulder allowed him to see Eykit and Taid charging in to his rescue. The creature opened its mouth, wider than a human mouth ever could, the yellowed teeth wet with fluid, and it hissed in Almë’s face. Then it slammed its knee into Almë’s crotch, but the mage was able to twist aside, and the result was only a glancing blow to his leg.
Mr. Wiggles, struggling with the entangling grass, finally got close enough to the creature to clamp his teeth into its leg.
Elitheris nocked another arrow, and everyone heard the wailing, hooting noise again, this time with what sounded like trees rustling in the wind. A shudder went through her; she could feel something coming. Everyone could. It was like a mental chill that made one’s hair stand up on end. There was a sense of wrongness.
Almë struck the creature’s shoulder, cracking it, and that arm let go, and Almë was free of its grasp. Both arms now hung limp at its sides, twitching a little, but unable to perform any real actions.
Mr. Wiggles bit down into the creature’s calf, the stringy flesh tearing under the assault of his teeth. He growled, the flesh of this thing didn’t taste right.
This got the creature’s attention, and it used its other foot to stomp on the dog. But the dog wasn’t staying put; he was moving around, trying to not become trapped by the entangling grasses and to get his teeth better purchase. So the stamp kick mostly glanced off of the chainmail armor the dog had on his back. Mr. Wiggles yelped in pain, then growled and bit down harder.
Elitheris let the arrow fly, and it hit the undead monster in the chest, close to the other two arrows. Its left arm flailed as it tried to grab at the cluster of arrows, but it couldn’t coordinate the muscles well enough to do so.
Taid lunged at extreme range, the point of his halberd punching through the flailing arm.
The rustling noises were louder now, and Eykit realized that the sounds were coming from above them. And then it burst through the canopy of the trees.
It was large, a huge mass of black, liquid flesh, tentacles forming and dissolving and whipping around in the air. Most of the tentacles had fringes of finger-like pseudopods at the ends, along with a collection of eyes that stared balefully around. Its shape hurt the mind and made the eyes ache, as if it didn’t make any sense logically, or like a moving optical illusion. It was hard to determine how far away it was, as if it were somehow partially displaced or offset. And it was flying, its myriad of tentacles momentarily grabbing the nearby branches as if it was pulling itself along through the air. The way it moved set off subconscious fears of centipedes and spiders, snakes and cephalopods.
But Almë didn’t have time for that; he kicked at the undead creature, but it hopped out of the way. Mr. Wiggles clamped down harder, twisting his head this way and that, attempting to get his teeth sunk deeply into the fleshy leg. And that did it. The undead creature fell over to lie beside the area of tangling weeds.
Eykit turned away from the undead creature and faced the…whatever it was. His mind couldn’t process what it was. He could see its shape, its limbs, but it just didn’t make any sense, almost as if each of his eyes saw something different.
Elitheris aimed at the flying, amorphous creature, sighting along the arrow and targeting…well, something that looked important. She was having a hard time figuring out how far away it was, but it was large enough that it didn’t really matter. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Taid planting Maggie into the ground. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t seem to have affected him much. Her own mind was confused, but it was a minor thing that could be ignored at the moment.
Almë bent down, meaning to roll the now-dead undead into the grasping weeds. He could hear the shouts of his friends, and the rustling of something large, but he was determined to finish this foe before turning his attention to another. What he thought was unnerving was the fact that he could feel the large creature approaching, like the presence of someone looming over one’s shoulder. Focus, Almë! he thought to himself, sticking to his task. That thing can wait another moment.
Mr. Wiggles turned from his dead foe and faced the new one. The emanations of “predator” and “I’m way bigger than you are” made his doggy brain quail in horror. He whined, his tail between his legs, and he crouched down, trying to make himself as small as possible.
Elitheris let fly the arrow, and it sank itself to the fletching in its bulk. Taid, meanwhile, had swung his crossbow off his shoulder, and was lifting it into firing position.
Almë finally turned to see what was now attacking them, and he wished he hadn’t. It looked like a mass of writhing black snakes, with several extra eyeballs where there really shouldn’t have been any. And they were somehow sliding through each other. It just wasn’t right.
Eykit stood there, staring at the thing. It was starting to descend, and a yellowish gas started emanating from a myriad of holes. To Eykit, it smelled reminiscent of sharp scents of ammonia and acid, and it felt as if it was eating away at his lungs. He held his breath as the gas filled the air around him. Whatever this stuff was, he didn’t want to be breathing it.
Mr. Wiggles’ doggy brain stopped trying to process whatever it was trying to process, threw the idea of the creature into the mental bin marked “enemy,” and ran straight for the huge mass, growling.
Elitheris pulled three arrows out of her quiver as Taid sighted down the crossbow and squeezed the trigger. The bolt leapt out of the crossbow with the metallic thunk of the thick steel spring. The thing shifted a bit, and the bolt zinged by, missing by centimeters. “Gods damn it!” he shouted, tossing the spent crossbow to the ground and grabbing his trusty halberd.
“Fucking snakes!” Almë muttered. His mind was full of them, it seemed, stretching their oily soft fingers into his brain. He could feel them in there, sliding and pushing the spongy, wet brain tissue. But they weren’t snakes, they were tentacles. He kept telling his brain that, but he kept seeing snakes. Mutated snakes, joined to other snakes, like Hoskins and Patricia were joined. No, not like that…right? Not melted together, right? Oh gods, they are snakes, all melted together into a horrid squirming mass….it was snakes, all the way down.
The large globular creature was moving toward Eykit. Eykit showed his mettle, and lunged, stabbing with first one dagger, then the other. The first cut a deep slice in its quivering bulk, the second stabbed into the wound, opening it up further, the Goblin’s arm elbow deep in the gelid mass. The creature shuddered; it felt that, and the group could see it convulse and twitch in apparent pain. Black goo oozed out of the gaping wound. Eykit could feel musculature pulse around his arm in a cold embrace.
Mr. Wiggles charged in, but took one whiff of the yellowish gas and turned around, running towards Elitheris and the workshop. Elitheris loosed an arrow, again sinking to the fletching in the black bulk.
Taid swung Maggie in an overhand cut, slicing off several tentacles, which fell to the ground and writhed like living things. Almë saw Taid swing, and the monster gave birth to several snakes, which twisted and contorted on the ground. He saw the glint of wet teeth.
Eykit, his arm still in the beast, ripped it out, again widening the wound channel. Just for good measure, he stabbed his other hand into the widened hole as well.
The creature pulsed and quivered, and retreated upward, its bulk pushing aside the tree branches as it rose. It dodged an arrow shot by Elitheris, and Taid started to pull the string back on his crossbow.
Almë was finally able to stop obsessing about snakes, and looked around, trying to get some situational awareness. He needed to know where the enemies were. He didn’t see any besides the still writhing flesh of the Shardzombie, and the retreating bulk of the flying thing.
Eykit pulled out a throwing knife, and flicked his wrist, sending it in the direction of the black monstrosity. It tumbled end over end then sank itself into one of the eyes of the creature. Parts of the beast started to fall away from it like smoking globules, almost as if the trees themselves were tearing it apart as it moved through the branches. Within moments, it was gone, faded away, a thin residue of dark liquid staining the leaves.
Almë glanced around, making sure there were no longer any immediate threats. He didn’t see any, so he dealt with the potential threat of the Shardzombie’s body. As long as the Shard was attached to it, the flesh moved. At some point, it was likely that the Shard would reanimate the creature, and no one knew how long it took. No one wanted to know, or at least no one was willing to let it get that far.
He pulled out his belt dagger, laboriously rolled the body to expose its back, fighting against the entwining grasses and grasping weeds. He stripped the body of its chainmail shirt, and started digging the shard out from between the body’s vertebrae. It took him about as long as the remaining duration of his spell, and shortly after he severed the connections the Shard had with the body, the plant life around him reverted back to normality. They no longer trapped anyone in the area in a vegetable embrace.
He pocketed the Shard. It would be safe there.
During that time, Taid cast a spell of Sense Danger, but if there were any danger, it was too far off to register. “Seems safe, for now.” His paranoia didn’t let him fully relax, though. High Razor, ineffectual as he had been, was still out there somewhere, as was Nathan. Although Nathan’s abilities, if he had any, were unknown. He hadn’t ever attacked them; he had just tried to run away when he was ambushed.
“So,” Taid said, “where is Nathan, the creepy toymaker? We haven’t collected any necromancers. They keep getting away. At least we know he is JC.”
“Do we, though?” Elitheris asked. “He could have lied.”
“Ugh, I don’t like that option. Eykit would know if he lied, right?”
Eykit shrugged. “It’s not an exact science. Just a gut feeling, really.” Almë shrugged. “We’ve got a couple of options. When he teleported, he must have come here and summoned those things. He might be around here somewhere, watching to see how his creatures fared. Did he see us come to his house? Is he still around? Or, if he isn’t around, we can just use his horse and cart, load it up with toys, and sell them or whatever.”
“What set them off?” Taid asked. “Where did those things come from? We were here for a while before they attacked us. What was their trigger to attack us?”
“Maybe they were his security staff?” Elitheris said.
“He might not have kept those things at his house,” Taid said. “He sold toys out of his workshop. He wouldn’t have wanted a fleshy ropy thing hanging around scaring the children. They might have been out in the bushes somewhere to keep them away from the house.”
“Or that giant floating black mass of melted snakes!” Almë added.
“Can we track them or something?” Eykit asked.
“No way to track the flying thing,” Elitheris stated. “But the zombie thing probably had tracks.”
“Elitheris, let me cast a spell of Plant Sense on you,” Almë offered. “It should make tracking easier.”
“That’s not a bad plan,” Eykit stated, and Elitheris nodded.
Almë walked over to Elitheris, and cast the spell on her. And then all of a sudden her vision sharpened, somehow, and the jungle became louder. Things seemed to become more obvious. The zombie’s tracks almost leapt out into her field of view, as did the black residue that was smeared on the leaves and branches along the path that the flying thing took.
The tracks and broken branches caused by the zombie led upslope about fifty meters or so, to a cluster of boulders. They led around the boulders, to a little alcove or cleft where the footprints clustered. To Elitheris’ eyes, it had been there a while, hours, or perhaps even days, depending upon how often it had to shift its weight or stretch its legs.
The cleft was hidden from view from the clearing. It seemed like a good place to stash something without it being seen, but near enough to call to it. Other than the tracks, there were no other artifacts or residue that the zombie thing had left.
That mystery solved, they went in the direction from whence the globular entity had come. That too went upslope, and, cresting the ridge line, saw that on the other side was a ravine. They climbed down into it, then started following it away from the shore. Soon they saw broken branches, covered in a thin residue of black ichor. A little farther up, they came across a pool of black goo, surrounded by shrubberies that were half dead, poisoned by the ichor. It looked like the black globular mass of tentacles has sat here for a while.
Eykit took one look at the pool and its effects, and immediately started feeling an itching on the arm that had been inside the creature, that was now covered in black goo. “Oh no!” he wailed, as he ran down the ravine towards the river to wash it off before it dissolved his arm.
“Whatever that thing was, it looks like this was its home for quite some time,” Elitheris said. “It couldn’t have just been waiting for us.”
“Yeah, we haven’t been here that long,” Taid agreed.
“Do we know if this is something Nathan…JC…knew about? Or could it have been waiting to ambush him, be we beat it to it?”
Taid shrugged. “Who knows?”
“The crazed toymaker knows,” Almë said.
The rest of them moved back to the house and workshop. Eykit would be a little while getting cleaned up. Fortunately, he had some soap.
“I don’t think he’s our run of the mill standard necromancer,” Eykit said, when he had come back. “He seems more like a demon summoner.”
“The letters mention that he’s talking to some things from other branes,” Elitheris said. “And I got the impression from the letters that he wrote to those other necromancers that putting the Shards in zombies wasn’t his primary method of research. I think he likely made that Shardzombie just to test some theories about how they work.”
“Oh shit! Is he embedding Shards in demons?” That wasn’t a thought that made Eykit feel comfortable at all. “Is that even possible?” He looked around at his companions. They returned looks of helpless ignorance, and not a little fear.
Taid scratched his beard in thought. “We know the Shards seem to act as a control method for the zombies, in addition to giving them enhanced powers. The question then becomes, ‘does implanting a Shard in a demon’s body make them easier to control?’”
“My friend, that kind of thought gives me the heebie jeebies,” Eykit admitted.
“We should take his horse and cart, put all of the toys in it, and burn down all of his buildings,” Almë suggested.
“We can definitely take the cart. Could Nathan have been hiding in the stall?” No one had looked. He wasn’t back there, but a mule was. If he had been in there, he was long gone now. Almë started loading the toys onto the cart, the few mostly complete ones that Nathan had left behind. Then he went back into Nathan’s house, looking for trap doors. He doesn’t find any. He also doesn’t find anything of value, except for some really good woodwork.
“Shouldn’t there be a lab or something around here?” Taid asked.
Almë answered, “But he was experimenting with demons, not really experimenting with undead. Does summoning demons require a lab?”
Taid nodded reluctantly. “Probably not.”
Almë loaded a bunch of chairs onto the cart. The chairs were very well made, although they aren’t overly decorated. When it came to Nathan’s furniture style, he seemed to create pieces that were minimalist, with clean lines. They managed to get four chairs and three end tables into the cart, tucking the toys in between, wherever there was space. The plan was to sell them to the inn or tavern.
“Half the tools were gone from the workshop,” Taid mentioned, his mind still on finding Nathan. “He’s got to have a place somewhere else around here.”
“We can go to town with this stuff,” Almë said. “Chill for a little while, and look at a map of the island. Then we can go looking for this guy. The island isn’t that big. If he’s got a second base, he’ll probably be there.”
They took the mule and cart and walked it back to town. As they emerged out of the jungle’s edge and entered the farmed fields, they saw that there was no one in the fields nearby, and, in the distance, the gates were shut. They had never seen the gates shut during the day before.
When they got closer, they could see sentries moving back and forth on the battlements armed with spears, pruning hooks, and pitchforks, and several of them had bows. They heard whistles being blown, and as they approached, they could hear the sentries talking.
“It’s them! The marauders!”
“The bandits are here! The bandits are here!”
“Archers! Ready!” There was a flurry of movement as people from farther down the battlements rushed towards the area of the gate. Several armed people milled above the gate and to both sides, their attention on the four travelers and the dog with the horse and cart.
Eykit looked around at the cart, filled with contraband. “Well, the only evidence they have that we are bandits is this stolen horse, stolen cart, and a load of furniture whose provenance they can likely guess. We’re fucked. Ugh, I really should have thought this through. I’m getting sloppy. Nathan has probably ratted us out.”
“Well,” Elitheris said, “there is nothing in this cart that I’m really willing to fight over. It’s not worth it.”
The glint of avarice sparkled in Eykit’s eye. “But the horse is worth a tidy sum. Although a reputation as a horse thief isn’t all that great.”
“We can just turn around and leave,” Almë said, “and shout ‘Nathan is the bad guy!’ and if they follow us, we just kill them.” Almë could be a murderous little psychopath, when he put his mind to it.
Taid made a suggestion. “I think Eykit should try talking to them. He’s pretty good at that kind of thing.”
“The cart stays out of range. Eykit can go talk to them, but I’m staying here with the cart.”
Eykit sighed in relief, and sent a prayer to Kenjili, god of shadows and patron of thieves, thanking him for seeing fit to make Almë stay with the cart, out of trouble. Elitheris stayed with Almë, while Taid hurried to catch up with Eykit. If necessary, he could be a body shield if any of those archers decided to get froggy.
Eykit walked towards the palisade, his arms upraised and empty, hopefully letting the sentries know he wasn’t a threat. It was partially offset by the armored Dwarf walking beside him, but Taid had at least left Maggie back on the cart. He still wore a sidearm, though, and Eykit’s matching pair of rondels were obvious. Both looked tough as nails.
The thought that the town might be in on the whole thing occurred to Taid as he walked with Eykit.
They were hailed when they got to within a hundred meters of the gates. “Leave! You are not welcome here!”
“We’re not bandits!” Eykit called up to them. “I know it looks that way, but we’re not!”
“You have assaulted one of our own! And you’ve stolen his stuff and you’re telling us you’re not bandits? That’s bullshit!”
“So…Nathan. Is he there?”
“That’s not your problem. Go away!”
“Actually, he is our problem, because he attacked us first!” Eykit knew he was lying, but he needed to win the propaganda war. And Nathan had the advantage.
“That’s not what he said.”
“We just want to talk with Nathan.”
“He is not interested in talking to the bandits that assaulted him.”
“He attacked us first. Ask him about his reanimated creature. How about the smoke monster?”
“We have no idea what you are talking about. Now you are just making things up.”
“We know, and that’s fine. He knows.” He was losing them, if he had ever had them in the first place. Looked at from their point of view, one of the townsfolk had been out minding his own business, got chased by some bandits, and nearly killed. And then they had stolen his things.
It wasn’t looking good. But he tried to turn on all the charm he could. It was an uphill battle; he had to persuade an entire crowd of people that didn’t like him.
“Nathan is a warlock! We are merely trying to track down a necromancer! There is necromancy happening, and we are trying to track it down. That’s all we are trying to do. We are trying to figure this out. There is a six year old child that was reanimated by an acquaintance of Nathan’s, and he knows it. The parents are bereaved about this; they have lost their only child. We are doing this for them.”
Taid quietly said to Eykit, “We found him at an ancient altar, in the middle of the night. And when he noticed us, he ran, which meant he was guilty of something.”
Eykit repeated that, then added, “All we wanted to do was question him. We wanted answers. And he wouldn’t even talk to us. I beg of you, listen: we didn’t want to hurt him. When we did, we healed him. We made sure he lived.” Then he added, “Make sure he lets you know that.”
He could see a couple of the people up there look questionably at the speaker, as if they were moved by Eykit’s words, but judging from the sudden looks of discomfort on their faces, their neighbors had just slammed their elbows in their sides to keep them quiet.
“We don’t know about any little girl. We just know that he was just going to some of the places he normally goes to and got attacked by a group of well armed thugs, bristling with weaponry you only find in the military.” That was something of an exaggeration. Only Taid had an obviously military weapon. Knives, bows, and staves were common in most places. Granted, Eykit’s rondels weren’t really “tools” in the sense of utility; they were designed specifically as a weapon. As a utility knife, they didn’t perform very well.
“He lied to us, also,” Taid said.
“You guys are as trustworthy as any other bandits or pirates. Look at the stuff you stole! That’s his cart, and his mule!”
Eykit thought fast. “Well, we planned to give it back, if he spoke to us.”
The speaker up on the palisade repeated, “He has no interest in speaking to the thugs that attacked him. He didn’t lift a finger against you.”
“When he’s ready to talk, we’ll give him his stuff.” “Then leave.”
“Alright! Fine. We’re leaving.” He turned around, a part of his mind worried that an arrow would slam into his back. None came. Almë was turning the cart around, in order to go back to Nathan’s house.
“What’s the plan?” Elitheris asked. “Obviously, it didn’t go very well.”
“No it did not,” Eykit said, dejectedly. “Nathan obviously got to them first, and turned them against us. Although, to be honest, I can’t really blame them. From their point of view, we are the aggressors. Have you looked at Taid recently? He’s a scary motherfucker. Babies cry when he enters a room.”
Taid didn’t appreciate the ribbing. Maybe the next time he’s at the alchemist’s shop he might pick up some itching powder to put into the crotch of Eykit’s gambeson. “Keep it up, runt,” he muttered.
“There are other ways to enter a town,” he continued. “We’ll go back there under cover of darkness. I don’t know if you noticed, but most of the townsfolk are Human. They don’t do so well in the dark. We, on the other hand, can see rather well at night.”
“Well, since the town hates us now, I suppose we don’t have to return that boat we rented, do we?” Eykit said. “And I saw a rowboat tied to Nathan’s dock. So, really, we have two boats now.”
Almë wanted to burn the house down.
“Why?” Eykit asked him.
“Because he is evil, and he probably has some stuff here that he needs. If we burn it all, he won’t be able to use it. It’s karma farming. Burning down the stuff of bad people is good.”
“Almë,” the little Goblin said, “your sense of ethics is severely stunted. I seem to have more ethics than you do, and I am considered a criminal. You are talking about a guy who makes toys for children, and just gives them away.”
“He’s obviously killing people, and summoning demons.”
“Is he? Did you see him summon anything? Or kill anyone? The town didn’t seem worried about missing people, or murders. Everyone seemed in pretty good spirits, actually. Be a nice place to live, if I could stand small towns.”
“He didn’t talk to us, so he’s probably evil.”
Eykit shook his head, smiling in chagrin. “Would you talk to someone who, first, barged into his shop and broke his stuff, then chased him down and broke his leg? I was close enough to hear his bone crack when you hit his leg. Not to mention the other guy—“ he indicated Taid—“who ran him through with a fucking polearm!”
“I still want to burn his place down.” He didn’t see the stricken look on Elitheris’ face. “It’ll act as a distraction!”
“No, Almë, no need to do that,” Taid said. “What is it with you and arson?” He shook his head.
“But he’s summoning demons in there!”
“It’s not like it’s an open demon portal. Pentagrams don’t work that way.”
“Fine. I’m tired. I’m taking a nap. We can burn it afterwards.”
Elitheris shuddered, remembering a certain forest fire from her past. “No fires,” she said softly. She knew that if the house or workshop burned, it would likely start a forest fire. At the very least, the smoke would be visible from town.
“We have enough enemies already. We don’t need to make any more.” Eykit stated. “It won’t help if we burn down the village.”
“When we’re done with the island, we can consider it.” Taid said. “Until we are done, it doesn’t make any sense to burn anything down.”
“Fine,” Almë said, resigned. “No fires.”
Several hours passed. Almë woke up screaming. He’d had one of his nightmares. In it, Lennerd had raised his wife Viryalossë as an undead, her flesh raw, stringy, and squirming like a mass of snakes, sliding over her bones as she raised her arms for an embrace. Her arms went around him, her head tilting for a kiss with lips that frayed into threads of bleeding flesh, her teeth unnaturally long and white. He woke only when he could feel her writhing lips on his own.
Although awake, he did not feel rested. He waited until his heart rate slowed back down to normal before standing up and rolling up his sleeping furs. He wiped a tear from his face as he tightened the straps holding the furs to his pack. He missed Viryalossë; he really didn’t like seeing her as one of the zombies he’d had to fight.
While Almë slept, so did the other three, in shifts. There weren’t willing to let Almë be on watch. They didn’t want to be asleep if Nathan came back. Each of them got about four hours of sleep. It helped.
They waited for night in order to sneak inside the town. Almë wanted to take all of the remaining toys and put them in the boat. Preferably to sell them, although he would be willing to just give them away to children. “It’s more important to me to take them away from Nathan than it is to make a profit.”
“Sacrilege!” Eykit said, smirking.
He also grabbed every chair in the house and workshop, and threw them in the river, shouting “This fucking guy won’t fucking sit anytime soon!” They slowly floated down stream. Almë felt better. His light mental breakdown over, he seemed easier to work with. He acted like 351 year old toddler.
“Now we don’t have anything to sit on!” Elitheris said. “Thanks!”
“We are leaving anyway!” Almë retorted.
They left the half finished toys in the workshop. Once it was dark enough, they piled into the canoe they had rented, along with the sack of toys. Mr. Wiggles, his place taken up by the bag, made himself as comfortable as he could upon it. Everyone else rowed the canoe downstream, passing Isleton Cove with the southern docks, and looping around the southern headland that lead in to Long Bay, at the end of which were the eastern docks. It was a dark night; the moon was a waning sliver.
They could see some lamps at both Isleton Cove as they passed by and Long Bay. The fishermen were all back in town, and lights could be seen from the town in the distance.
They reached the docks, tied up their canoe, leaving Mr. Wiggles tied to it as a guard dog, and made their way towards the city, sticking to the shadows. They could hear him whining as they left him on the docks. They were assuming that Nathan would likely be at the tavern or the inn, since he was a hermit and had no friends.
The town was about a mile from Long Bay, so it was a bit of a hike. They approached the palisade wall around the town, and could see figures with torches moving along the battlements. The town was alert, and seemed to be expecting trouble. Once they got in the vicinity of the town, they split up in order to preserve each other’s stealthiness. If they saw one person, they wanted to make sure that they didn’t see any of the others. They stayed at least twenty meters apart.
There wasn’t a lot of cover, as the town was surrounded by harvested fields. But the night was dark enough so as long as they waited until the sentries weren’t too close, they could get to the wall.
Taid got to within about fifteen meters of the wall when someone heard or spotted him. Shouts could be heard over the sounds of whistles blowing. “I see him! He’s over there!” The torchlight was glinting off his armor.
“Who? Which one is it?”
“The Dwarf! The Dwarf! He’s over here! “Where’re the others?”
“Don’t know! I only see the Dwarf!”
“Anyone got a pint?” Taid said. “I just want a drink!”
A pair of arrows flick by, one on each side of his head, and neither was too close. In the dark, they couldn’t get a good read on his exact position. Starlight, the crescent moon, and a couple of flickering torches just weren’t enough to see him well enough. But there was always the chance that they might get lucky.
Eykit found a rock double the size of his fists, and hurled it away from him. It crashed into a pile of hay left over from the reaping, making a rustling noise. Eykit could hear the thudding of a pair of arrows as they hit the earth in that direction. The sentries were panicking. To Almë and Taid, they seemed like an untrained militia, rather than a professional fighting force.
Taid wasn’t being very stealthy, and the sentries reacquired him, sending three more arrows his way. One was so far away that he didn’t worry about that one, but he ducked and wove to avoid the other two. Neither hit him.
While the sentries were busy with Taid, the other three managed to get to the base of the palisade wall. They could hear the sentries running around on the catwalk on the inside of the wall, and their shouts as they tried to coordinate some kind of defense against the bandits. The twanging of bowstrings could be heard as they tried to shoot him with arrows, but they didn’t hear any screams of pain, so they figured that Taid was okay.
Elitheris knew that if they were using hunting bows, and not warbows, there wasn’t much chance of going through his armor. But there was always the chance of a lucky hit that found a gap.
Almë, Elitheris, and Eykit climbed up the wall. It was smoothed logs, and any branches that would have made good handholds had been cut off. So it wasn’t the easiest of climbs, although it was easier than scaling a smooth stone wall.
Almë got up to the top of the wall, peering carefully over it to locate the sentries. He could see several sentries running around trying to find the intruders. He levered himself over as quietly as he could and crouched on the catwalk.
Eykit popped over and crouched on the catwalk. His small form was nearly invisible in the deep shadow of the wall.
Elitheris flipped over the wall, landing between a pair of barrels filled with sheaves of arrows for the archers on the wall to use. She was quite pleased with this, and grabbed a couple of sheaves of arrows to restock her supply. It took her a bit of time to sort through the sheaves, looking for arrows that could be used with her bow. She considered tossing the rest over the palisade wall, but dismissed the petty thought. She hoped it wouldn’t bite her in the ass later.
Almë had little time before he would be seen, so he leaped off the catwalk to the ground, four meters below. He came down hard on his left ankle, rolling it, and pain shot up through his leg. He managed not to cry out, however, and managed remaining unnoticed.
Eykit was a bit luckier, because a ladder was nearby. It was rough hewn, like the rest of the scaffold-like catwalk and the palisade wall. Normally, he would have done a ladder slide, but he had to modify that a bit due to the unevenness of the ladder construction. He dexterously made descending the ladder look easy, however. Once down, he found a handy shadow and become one with the darkness.
Elitheris looked at the catwalk, locating sentries. She could see a dozen down one way, and a half dozen down the other. She waited for an opportune time, then leapt off the catwalk, somersaulting in the air, but mistimed the landing. She came down hard, and was glad no one saw the lousy landing. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice her move into the shadows of the nearby house. She moved into the shadows of a woodpile.
Taid ran towards the wall, trying to get to the base of the palisade. A handful of arrows whisked by him, but none hit him. He made it to the wall, pressing his back against it and peering upward to make sure no falling objects were on their way to flatten him. There were three gates into the town: west, south, and east. He ran northward, holding his halberd against the wall so it thunked with each log. It made a satisfying “thunk thunk thunk” noise as he ran.
“Get the rocks!” He heard above him. “Get the oil!” A moment later, he heard some loud thumps behind him, the sounds of rocks hitting hard packed earth. Judging from the sound, the rocks were at least the size of his head.
Taid’s companions could hear a commotion, and could see the sentries scurrying around, apparently following Taid. The heat was a bit off of them.
Eykit scanned the area. He was in the eastern residential area, and he knew that all of the commercial buildings were in the center of town. The shrine, the city hall, tavern, inn, barber, and general store were all in the central square, where two days a week they held the market. He made his way towards the center of town. He kept to the shadows, because he could see people moving through town, carrying lanterns. There weren’t a lot of them, but there were enough to make casually walking through town problematic. But no one saw him; he was one with the night.
Elitheris looked about, getting her bearings. Like Eykit, she knew the basic layout of the town, although she hadn’t visited this section. She couldn’t see Eykit or Almë, but she did see, off in the distance down the street, a sentry carrying a lantern. Apparently, the whole town was on alert, although most of the ad hoc militia seemed to be on the catwalks.
But it was only a matter of time before they started figuring that somehow, someone got inside their perimeter.
She assumed that Nathan was most likely in the inn, or the tavern. She remembered that the two buildings were separated by the barber. She headed towards the general direction of the center of town. She crept from shadow to shadow, avoiding the occasional sentry. Once past the outer perimeter, it got a bit easier. While she could see the occasional sentry wandering around with a lantern, there weren’t that many of them. Most of the able-bodied militia were at the walls.
Almë limped into the shadows of a building between the raised bed of the kitchen garden and the house itself. There, he wrapped his ankle to stabilize it. It hurt, but his foot could still support his weight. It was tender, but it didn’t really slow him down. He moved from the shadows, and almost got caught by a sentry, but managed to duck into a doorway and not be seen.
Eykit, crouching in a bush, looked out into the market square. There wasn’t anyone in the marketplace area, so he started looking into the windows of the inn. Just as he was about to peer into the window, however, he heard someone turn a corner nearby. He dove into the alcove of a doorway, hardly breathing. The sentry held aloft his lantern, looked about, but didn’t see anything and went on his way.
Elitheris also got to the marketplace area. She could see the occasional patrol, but managed to avoid them. She found herself by the tavern, undiscovered as of yet. She crouched between an empty crate and a barrel of rainwater, hidden from view from most directions.
Almë, his ankle bound, also made his way towards the center of town. About halfway there, he was spotted by a sentry from a half a block away, who ran towards him, yelling an alert and blowing on his whistle. “Shit,” Almë muttered, as he took off down a side street. He ducked between two houses and found some shadows to move through so he wouldn’t be seen. He hoped he had found the cover of darkness before being seen by the sentry, but he wasn’t sure. And there was always the possibility that the sentry guessed which way he went even if he hadn’t been seen.
Taid pulled out his darkness strip, and moved it around him, deepening the darkness that lay at the base of the wall. He could hear a bunch of sentries running along the catwalk, thinking that he had kept running in that direction. He paused, thinking, then moved back the way he came, as quietly as he could. Fortunately, he thought, all that running around they are doing is making plenty of noise. From the sounds of it, the catwalk wasn’t solidly attached to the wall, but tied off in spots to stabilize it. He could hear it creaking and banging on the palisade every time someone ran past. They really should have nailed it to the wall in a more secure fashion. But hey, it helps me out, so I won’t complain to their building managers.
He pulled out a rope, and tied a noose on one end. Then he tried to cast the spell of Apportation, but the magic eluded him. He sighed, tried again, and this time succeeded. The loop of rope lifted into the air, and he guided it until he could drop it over the tapered end of the log. He tugged it tight, then scaled the wall. He got up to the top without much difficulty, and saw that the people were far enough away for him to roll over the top of the wall. He landed on the catwalk, which shifted slightly under his weight. It was less a catwalk and more like a scaffold, although it was at least tied to the inside wall of the palisade. Yep, he thought, definitely should have nailed this sucker to the wall. Shoddy building practices! He resisted the urge to shift his weight back and forth to rock the scaffold and prove his point.
But it was only a matter of time before someone saw him up there. He could see thatched roofs, but he would possibly fall right through them if he jumped onto them. He grabbed his rope and coiled it, crouching on the catwalk. A ladder was nearby, and he used that to get down to ground level. He moved into the shadowed side of a house.
He looked for a bush to conceal him. He planned to use the darkness strip to hide in again. Then he could make noises as distractions, and not be seen. He could see the occasional sentry, armed with spears or pitchforks or other farming implements. Every now and then, they would call out to each other, asking if anyone had seen anything. So far, so good, he thought. No one’s been found yet.
“Hey, I see him!” Taid heard, off in the distance. Of course I just had to jinx it! He knew he hadn’t been seen, so a sentry must have gotten lucky and found one of the others. Almë probably found a torch and was trying to burn down the city….
Eykit waited for the sentry to leave, then crept out of the doorway and went back to looking into the rooms of the inn. The first room he looked into was unoccupied. When they had stayed there, only two of the four rooms had been used; the other two had been empty. One had been theirs, the other one had been used by Johann, the bard. Eykit could hear, faintly, music being played.
Elitheris was at the tavern, between the crate and barrel. She peeked into a window, trying not to been seen herself. On the other side of the window was a table, with two people at it, talking. Several glasses, most of them empty, sat on the table. The two of them had been there for a little while, drinking and talking. She didn’t recognize either of them. She could see other people in the tavern, mostly elderly. The able-bodied were apparently part of the neighborhood watch, either at the walls, or roaming around the streets.
She could hear, faintly, the conversations in the tavern. Despite the warm evening, the windows were closed, likely due to the threat of the “bandits”. While there was some discussions about the “bandits”, there was no indication that any of the bandits were in town. Nor were any people talking about Nathan. So far, no one had been detected, as far as any of the tavern patrons knew.
Almë was hiding in an alley, trying to shake the tail on him. He could hear the sentry running down the nearby street. The Elf crouched behind a shrub, and he could see the man stop, looking down between the buildings where Almë hid. The man didn’t seem to see him, and he continued to run down to the next gap between buildings. Almë waited for the sentry to move farther away before creeping out and making his way again towards the center of town. He got lucky the sentry thought he had gone farther down the street before cutting between houses.
Taid, hiding in the bushes, waited until a sentry passed. Then, when they were a dozen or more meters away, he would make a noise, attracting their attention. But because they were never looking in the direction of the sound, they couldn’t quite pinpoint it, and with the darkness strip providing cover against their lanterns, they never saw him.
He certainly made them jumpy, though. Especially since they were all alone, trying to cover the entire town with limited manpower. They were stretched thin. They weren’t used to having to defend the whole town; usually that was the job of the professional military. Most of the river defense was handled by the nearby naval base. It was the naval base just north of Port Karn that patrolled the river byways against pirates and other threats.
Which brought to mind a horrible thought. Did the town send someone with a message to the naval base, asking for help against pirates or brigands? If so, they could be in a world of hurt. Tondene marines weren’t pushovers. And fighting them was tantamount to taking on all of the Tondene Empire, because they don’t take kindly to folks attacking their military units. Unit pride would make them want revenge if any of their members were killed. But, Taid reasoned, if they did come after us, they would be professional and likely try for custody, rather than just outright killing us. Especially if we tried talking our way out. We’d probably get taken in and put in the brig until we could be heard, though. But they likely won’t just kill us. He put thoughts like that out of his head, at least for the moment. He had more pressing concerns.
Eykit went to the next window and peeked into it. This room was Johann’s, and he was in it, on the bed, playing the lute and singing to himself. The expression on his face was resigned. To the Goblin, it seemed strange that he wasn’t in the tavern, playing for an audience.
Every now and then, she could hear him sigh heavily, as if he wasn’t pleased about his current situation.
Elitheris moved to the next window at the tavern, keeping low and in the shadows wherever possible. It was the same room, just a different view. She was able to hear “He’s over at the healer’s,” but she didn’t know the context, or who the healer was. Or where the healer was. She knew that there wasn’t an apothecary, and that the town was small enough that the person who was the healer likely had a different primary profession, or just did healing part time as required.
It was time to meet up with her companions, so she found herself a hiding spot where she could continue to listen. She eyed the chimney, which tapered, and used it to climb up to the roof. The roof was, like most of the other buildings in town, thatched, but as long as she stayed by the chimney and didn’t move much, no one would be able to hear her up there. But up there, she would be able to see her friends if they showed up. In fact, she could see Eykit two buildings away, looking in windows. He was a darker shadow within the shadow cast by the eaves of the building, but she knew him by his size and the way he moved. It’s likely no one who didn’t know Eykit would have seen him.
Elitheris made the sound of a nightingale, as a signal to Eykit.
Eykit, on reflex, ducked deeper into the shadows, because that sound definitely wasn’t a bird. He wasn’t sure what kind of bird call it was supposed to be, but he relaxed, because it was just Elitheris, trying and failing to mimic a avian. He hoped she didn’t call attention of the wrong kind to herself. He kept silent, listening for any changes in the ambient soundscape. He waited for a long minute, but nothing sounded out of the ordinary.
He looked up, where the sound came from, and saw a silhouette crouched by the chimney on the roof. It was indeed Elitheris. He did not reply to her signal.
Taid moved around, knowing that he would be found eventually if he kept making noise and didn’t relocate. He waited until there was no one about, then moved a couple of blocks, and again found a hiding spot from which to mess with the sentries.
Almë made it to the center of town, and found himself near the shrine. He looked around, and saw some movement by the inn, in the shadows. He sneaked through the shadows, making it across the marketplace towards the inn. Almë eyed the awning over the porch, looking for a way up onto the roof of the inn.
There was a post that made a convenient way up to the roof. He checked around, looking for any sentries close enough to see him. He didn’t see any, so he climbed up the post, the decorative lathing making it relatively easy.
Eykit heard some noise from the other side of the building. From what it sounded like, someone climbed up onto the roof. He looked around the corner, and saw a man, silhouetted against the stars, crouching an holding a quarterstaff, moving across the roof. It was Almë. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up skylining himself and getting caught. Which would make it more difficult for everyone else. Eykit knew that at some point, he was going to have to teach that Elf some proper stealth procedures. He had some natural aptitude, but he was missing some of the fundamentals. But then, being a gardener didn’t really give one a lot of opportunities to practice being sneaky.
Almë moved to one of the chimneys, using its shadow as cover. He looked around, but didn’t see anyone he knew. He was the first person to get to the inn, as far as he knew.
Taid noticed that the number of sentries in his area was getting to be high as a result of his noisemaking. He was going to have to move. He moved from the bush he was in to the shadowed corner of a building, then it was a spot under a wagon while a pair of sentries walked briskly by, then it was between a pair of barrels, then to a dark spot under a deck. It was a close call, but the Dwarf squirreled his way out from the closing noose of sentries. His distractions had worked well enough to have four sentries in his general area.
He moved to another part of the residential areas. He was able to hear, on occasion, what the sentries were exchanging information about. So far, there was no concrete evidence that the marauders had infiltrated the town, but no one was sure, and no one wanted to take any chances. And they kept hearing suspicious noises, although some of them thought that there might be a prankster messing with them.
It was time for Taid to make some more noise. “Little Johnny plays the fools, go to bed and take your tools!”
That got someone’s attention. “What was that?” came a voice.
“I dunno, what did they say?” came another.
“I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t understand it all. Something about Johnny!” came a third.
“Which Johnny?”
Shouts crisscrossed the area; the sentries were converging on Taid’s position again, as they tried to triangulate where the sound had come from. He could hear running feet on the cobblestones, coming closer.
Eykit could hear, in the distance, the sentries calling to each other. Taid was out there, making distractions. Eykit now knew where everyone was, more or less. He looked into the next window, and it was the room they had used. It was empty, as was the one next to it. All of the inn’s guest rooms were accounted for. He also looked into the common room, where he saw the innkeeper, alone, sitting at a table, drinking. He looked worried in the light of the few candles he had lit.
He had the feeling that few people were getting any sleep this evening.
He could hear, faintly, noises from the tavern two buildings down. So he knew there were people there. The only people that seemed to be here were the innkeeper and Johann, who was under what seemed to be a kind of house arrest. It’s possible the townies thought he was one of the marauders, or they had told him to stay in his room for his own protection.
He decided to go back to the window to Johann’s room. He had tipped the bard rather well for playing when they had talked. So it was possible that Johann wouldn’t rat him out right away. He tapped on the window. Johann looked out the window, trying to see what the noise was.
Eykit had moved back so he could be seen. He didn’t want to be too close and scare him. Jump scaring the bard would, at best, result in him alerting anyone nearby with his shout of alarm. Best to not do that.
“Ah!” he said, surprised. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be in a house somewhere? There are marauders out there!”
“Marauders?”
“Yeah, there are some bandits, or marauders roaming around. They attacked the local toymaker. Almost killed him; he barely escaped with his life! Then they robbed his house!”
“That’s horrible!”
“I know, right? It’s terrible! The whole town is locked down.”
“Is he okay?”
“Not really. He got taken to the healer. He got messed up pretty bad.”
“Oh gods, I wonder if I should take cover somewhere?”
“Yeah, you probably should. It’s dangerous out there. Are you part of the neighborhood watch all of a sudden?”
“No, I, uh, got really wasted and passed out in an alley.” Eykit rubbed his face, as if massaging the cobblestone marks out of his cheek.
Johann looked sympathetic. He nodded, rueful. “Been there, done that. The whiskey here isn’t the best. The ale’s all right, but the whiskey is barely passable.”
Now it was Eykit’s turn to look rueful. “And at my size…I had way too much. But it’s the only thing they have here, though.”
“Yeah, as far as cocktails go, it doesn’t stand up. It’s not bad, for what’s here.”
“Anyway, sorry to disturb you. I just heard you playing, and I love your stuff. And I just wanted to let you know.”
He was touched. “Aw, thank you very much,” he said, smiling.
“Yeah, it reminds me of home.”
“Really? That’s nice.”
Eykit held his head, wincing. “So, you’re telling me people are on edge?”
“Everybody here is on edge. They are just farmers, against some rather rough customers. And I’m stuck in my room! Can you believe it? They’re not even letting me play in the tavern.”
“What? Why?”
He threw his hands up over his head in a gesture of exasperation. “They think I might be some kind of advanced spy for the marauders or something. So here I am, under house arrest.”
“You’d think they would use you to calm people down.”
“You’d think. I would’ve thought that, but noooo.”
“They are really worried about the marauders, because they totally messed this guy up. They attacked him for no good gods damned reason.”
“Alright. Well. Ugh, I guess I’m going to go sleep it off. I’ve got that legendary whiskey headache.”
“I don’t know how legendary the whiskey here is, although it might gain a ‘legendary’ reputation that won’t be so favorable!”
Eykit started to walk away, but turned with a thought. “Hey. You mentioned a healer. Got any idea where they are? Maybe I can get something tomorrow morning when this all blows over. Somehow I don’t think the healer would like someone pounding on their door. Might think it was a marauder and stab me.”
“Wise idea. All I know is that it’s in the northern part of town. I don’t know specifically where their house is. Apparently this is the person they call when there is a farming accident or something.”
“Okay. I think I’m going to go back to the stable where I can sleep this off.”
“Hey. Watch out for those militia guys. They aren’t the best trained army I’ve seen. They are likely to stab you as look at you. Doesn’t help that they are scared shitless.”
“I haven’t seen a single one out here.”
“Seriously? Maybe I should sneak out!”
“If they’re out here, there aren’t many. I came straight here from the stable. And I didn’t see anybody. But there is a lot of yelling out there.”
“Have to admit that I’m not terribly surprised they don’t act like a professional military. These guys are farmers. They are just following orders and going by the numbers. And by the looks of it, they don’t do this very often.”
“Well, thanks. Appreciate it. Let’s just say I feel like shit, so I’m gonna go lay down.”
“Yeah, you don’t look so good.”
And he didn’t. He was a good enough actor to both look like crap due to over drinking, and to ensure that Johann wasn’t aware that Eykit was one of the marauders in question.
Elitheris grabbed some arrows from her quiver, readying them in her bow hand, and nocking one. Mr. Wiggles started barking, and she grabbed the collar of his armor to keep him from running off. She didn’t want him taking something on where they couldn’t get to him.
Eykit pulled out his daggers, nervously flipping them from icepick grip to sword grip, and back again, over and over as he waited.
Almë and Taid both started casting spells: Almë to set up a trap using the grasses and weeds, Taid to make his weapon dangerously cold.
Something burst into view, human sized, wearing chainmail and wielding a sword. Its skin looked flayed, the muscle fibers appearing to vibrate. It was one of those Shard-enhanced zombie things, and it was running straight at Almë, who stood alone by the carriage house. Everyone else was still by the workshop, dozens of meters away. At first, only Almë could see it; there was too much underbrush for the others to get a glimpse of it.
The Shardzombie stepped into the area that Almë’s spell of Tangled Growth had affected. The grass blades bent and twisted around its legs, the weeds grasping at its legs with their branches. It tore through them, but they slowed it down. It had to work to move forward. It attacked the Elf with a strong downward cut with its sword, which Almë parried, but the blade dug a notch into the wood.
Almë, with a flourish of his staff, knocked the sword out of the creature’s hand. It flew off, tumbling and sparkling in the dim moonlight, and landed in some bushes.
Mr. Wiggles was almost to the creature, his mouth agape to bite into its leg, when Almë’s spell caused the grasses to wrap themselves around the dog’s legs. Mr. Wiggles yelped in surprise and fear, his forward momentum suddenly halted.
Elitheris drew the bow back to her ear, letting the arrow fly. It flew true, burying itself in the creature’s ribcage.
Taid completed his spell of Icy Weapon, and frost appeared along the blade, wisps of chilled mist drifting down from it. He ran towards the animated monster, trying to get to Almë as quickly as he could.
Almë swung his staff in a low attack, trying to knock the creature off of its feet, but it sidestepped the strike.
The Shardzombie was engaged in combat with Almë, so Eykit seized his chance and ran towards it, hopefully to get a flanking attack. Mr. Wiggles, struggling with the grasses, tried to bite the undead foe, but the entangling plants made it difficult for him to move properly, and his jaws snapped together on nothing.
The creature, weaponless, grabbed Almë’s upper arms, perhaps to pull the Elf apart, or maybe throw him. And then another arrow, loosed by Elitheris, thudded into its chest two centimeters from the previous one. Almë could see the stringy flesh shifting disturbingly around the arrow shafts.
Almë slammed his staff into one of the creature’s arms, forcing it to let go. The forearm looked broken, and the monster appeared to have trouble controlling it. A quick glance over his shoulder allowed him to see Eykit and Taid charging in to his rescue. The creature opened its mouth, wider than a human mouth ever could, the yellowed teeth wet with fluid, and it hissed in Almë’s face. Then it slammed its knee into Almë’s crotch, but the mage was able to twist aside, and the result was only a glancing blow to his leg.
Mr. Wiggles, struggling with the entangling grass, finally got close enough to the creature to clamp his teeth into its leg.
Elitheris nocked another arrow, and everyone heard the wailing, hooting noise again, this time with what sounded like trees rustling in the wind. A shudder went through her; she could feel something coming. Everyone could. It was like a mental chill that made one’s hair stand up on end. There was a sense of wrongness.
Almë struck the creature’s shoulder, cracking it, and that arm let go, and Almë was free of its grasp. Both arms now hung limp at its sides, twitching a little, but unable to perform any real actions.
Mr. Wiggles bit down into the creature’s calf, the stringy flesh tearing under the assault of his teeth. He growled, the flesh of this thing didn’t taste right.
This got the creature’s attention, and it used its other foot to stomp on the dog. But the dog wasn’t staying put; he was moving around, trying to not become trapped by the entangling grasses and to get his teeth better purchase. So the stamp kick mostly glanced off of the chainmail armor the dog had on his back. Mr. Wiggles yelped in pain, then growled and bit down harder.
Elitheris let the arrow fly, and it hit the undead monster in the chest, close to the other two arrows. Its left arm flailed as it tried to grab at the cluster of arrows, but it couldn’t coordinate the muscles well enough to do so.
Taid lunged at extreme range, the point of his halberd punching through the flailing arm.
The rustling noises were louder now, and Eykit realized that the sounds were coming from above them. And then it burst through the canopy of the trees.
But Almë didn’t have time for that; he kicked at the undead creature, but it hopped out of the way. Mr. Wiggles clamped down harder, twisting his head this way and that, attempting to get his teeth sunk deeply into the fleshy leg. And that did it. The undead creature fell over to lie beside the area of tangling weeds.
Eykit turned away from the undead creature and faced the…whatever it was. His mind couldn’t process what it was. He could see its shape, its limbs, but it just didn’t make any sense, almost as if each of his eyes saw something different.
Elitheris aimed at the flying, amorphous creature, sighting along the arrow and targeting…well, something that looked important. She was having a hard time figuring out how far away it was, but it was large enough that it didn’t really matter. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Taid planting Maggie into the ground. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t seem to have affected him much. Her own mind was confused, but it was a minor thing that could be ignored at the moment.
Almë bent down, meaning to roll the now-dead undead into the grasping weeds. He could hear the shouts of his friends, and the rustling of something large, but he was determined to finish this foe before turning his attention to another. What he thought was unnerving was the fact that he could feel the large creature approaching, like the presence of someone looming over one’s shoulder. Focus, Almë! he thought to himself, sticking to his task. That thing can wait another moment.
Mr. Wiggles turned from his dead foe and faced the new one. The emanations of “predator” and “I’m way bigger than you are” made his doggy brain quail in horror. He whined, his tail between his legs, and he crouched down, trying to make himself as small as possible.
Elitheris let fly the arrow, and it sank itself to the fletching in its bulk. Taid, meanwhile, had swung his crossbow off his shoulder, and was lifting it into firing position.
Almë finally turned to see what was now attacking them, and he wished he hadn’t. It looked like a mass of writhing black snakes, with several extra eyeballs where there really shouldn’t have been any. And they were somehow sliding through each other. It just wasn’t right.
Eykit stood there, staring at the thing. It was starting to descend, and a yellowish gas started emanating from a myriad of holes. To Eykit, it smelled reminiscent of sharp scents of ammonia and acid, and it felt as if it was eating away at his lungs. He held his breath as the gas filled the air around him. Whatever this stuff was, he didn’t want to be breathing it.
Mr. Wiggles’ doggy brain stopped trying to process whatever it was trying to process, threw the idea of the creature into the mental bin marked “enemy,” and ran straight for the huge mass, growling.
Elitheris pulled three arrows out of her quiver as Taid sighted down the crossbow and squeezed the trigger. The bolt leapt out of the crossbow with the metallic thunk of the thick steel spring. The thing shifted a bit, and the bolt zinged by, missing by centimeters. “Gods damn it!” he shouted, tossing the spent crossbow to the ground and grabbing his trusty halberd.
The large globular creature was moving toward Eykit. Eykit showed his mettle, and lunged, stabbing with first one dagger, then the other. The first cut a deep slice in its quivering bulk, the second stabbed into the wound, opening it up further, the Goblin’s arm elbow deep in the gelid mass. The creature shuddered; it felt that, and the group could see it convulse and twitch in apparent pain. Black goo oozed out of the gaping wound. Eykit could feel musculature pulse around his arm in a cold embrace.
Mr. Wiggles charged in, but took one whiff of the yellowish gas and turned around, running towards Elitheris and the workshop. Elitheris loosed an arrow, again sinking to the fletching in the black bulk.
Taid swung Maggie in an overhand cut, slicing off several tentacles, which fell to the ground and writhed like living things. Almë saw Taid swing, and the monster gave birth to several snakes, which twisted and contorted on the ground. He saw the glint of wet teeth.
Eykit, his arm still in the beast, ripped it out, again widening the wound channel. Just for good measure, he stabbed his other hand into the widened hole as well.
The creature pulsed and quivered, and retreated upward, its bulk pushing aside the tree branches as it rose. It dodged an arrow shot by Elitheris, and Taid started to pull the string back on his crossbow.
Almë was finally able to stop obsessing about snakes, and looked around, trying to get some situational awareness. He needed to know where the enemies were. He didn’t see any besides the still writhing flesh of the Shardzombie, and the retreating bulk of the flying thing.
Eykit pulled out a throwing knife, and flicked his wrist, sending it in the direction of the black monstrosity. It tumbled end over end then sank itself into one of the eyes of the creature. Parts of the beast started to fall away from it like smoking globules, almost as if the trees themselves were tearing it apart as it moved through the branches. Within moments, it was gone, faded away, a thin residue of dark liquid staining the leaves.
Almë glanced around, making sure there were no longer any immediate threats. He didn’t see any, so he dealt with the potential threat of the Shardzombie’s body. As long as the Shard was attached to it, the flesh moved. At some point, it was likely that the Shard would reanimate the creature, and no one knew how long it took. No one wanted to know, or at least no one was willing to let it get that far.
He pulled out his belt dagger, laboriously rolled the body to expose its back, fighting against the entwining grasses and grasping weeds. He stripped the body of its chainmail shirt, and started digging the shard out from between the body’s vertebrae. It took him about as long as the remaining duration of his spell, and shortly after he severed the connections the Shard had with the body, the plant life around him reverted back to normality. They no longer trapped anyone in the area in a vegetable embrace.
He pocketed the Shard. It would be safe there.
During that time, Taid cast a spell of Sense Danger, but if there were any danger, it was too far off to register. “Seems safe, for now.” His paranoia didn’t let him fully relax, though. High Razor, ineffectual as he had been, was still out there somewhere, as was Nathan. Although Nathan’s abilities, if he had any, were unknown. He hadn’t ever attacked them; he had just tried to run away when he was ambushed.
“So,” Taid said, “where is Nathan, the creepy toymaker? We haven’t collected any necromancers. They keep getting away. At least we know he is JC.”
“Do we, though?” Elitheris asked. “He could have lied.”
“Ugh, I don’t like that option. Eykit would know if he lied, right?”
Eykit shrugged. “It’s not an exact science. Just a gut feeling, really.” Almë shrugged. “We’ve got a couple of options. When he teleported, he must have come here and summoned those things. He might be around here somewhere, watching to see how his creatures fared. Did he see us come to his house? Is he still around? Or, if he isn’t around, we can just use his horse and cart, load it up with toys, and sell them or whatever.”
“What set them off?” Taid asked. “Where did those things come from? We were here for a while before they attacked us. What was their trigger to attack us?”
“Maybe they were his security staff?” Elitheris said.
“He might not have kept those things at his house,” Taid said. “He sold toys out of his workshop. He wouldn’t have wanted a fleshy ropy thing hanging around scaring the children. They might have been out in the bushes somewhere to keep them away from the house.”
“Or that giant floating black mass of melted snakes!” Almë added.
“Can we track them or something?” Eykit asked.
“No way to track the flying thing,” Elitheris stated. “But the zombie thing probably had tracks.”
“Elitheris, let me cast a spell of Plant Sense on you,” Almë offered. “It should make tracking easier.”
“That’s not a bad plan,” Eykit stated, and Elitheris nodded.
Almë walked over to Elitheris, and cast the spell on her. And then all of a sudden her vision sharpened, somehow, and the jungle became louder. Things seemed to become more obvious. The zombie’s tracks almost leapt out into her field of view, as did the black residue that was smeared on the leaves and branches along the path that the flying thing took.
The tracks and broken branches caused by the zombie led upslope about fifty meters or so, to a cluster of boulders. They led around the boulders, to a little alcove or cleft where the footprints clustered. To Elitheris’ eyes, it had been there a while, hours, or perhaps even days, depending upon how often it had to shift its weight or stretch its legs.
The cleft was hidden from view from the clearing. It seemed like a good place to stash something without it being seen, but near enough to call to it. Other than the tracks, there were no other artifacts or residue that the zombie thing had left.
That mystery solved, they went in the direction from whence the globular entity had come. That too went upslope, and, cresting the ridge line, saw that on the other side was a ravine. They climbed down into it, then started following it away from the shore. Soon they saw broken branches, covered in a thin residue of black ichor. A little farther up, they came across a pool of black goo, surrounded by shrubberies that were half dead, poisoned by the ichor. It looked like the black globular mass of tentacles has sat here for a while.
“Whatever that thing was, it looks like this was its home for quite some time,” Elitheris said. “It couldn’t have just been waiting for us.”
“Yeah, we haven’t been here that long,” Taid agreed.
“Do we know if this is something Nathan…JC…knew about? Or could it have been waiting to ambush him, be we beat it to it?”
Taid shrugged. “Who knows?”
“The crazed toymaker knows,” Almë said.
The rest of them moved back to the house and workshop. Eykit would be a little while getting cleaned up. Fortunately, he had some soap.
“I don’t think he’s our run of the mill standard necromancer,” Eykit said, when he had come back. “He seems more like a demon summoner.”
“The letters mention that he’s talking to some things from other branes,” Elitheris said. “And I got the impression from the letters that he wrote to those other necromancers that putting the Shards in zombies wasn’t his primary method of research. I think he likely made that Shardzombie just to test some theories about how they work.”
“Oh shit! Is he embedding Shards in demons?” That wasn’t a thought that made Eykit feel comfortable at all. “Is that even possible?” He looked around at his companions. They returned looks of helpless ignorance, and not a little fear.
Taid scratched his beard in thought. “We know the Shards seem to act as a control method for the zombies, in addition to giving them enhanced powers. The question then becomes, ‘does implanting a Shard in a demon’s body make them easier to control?’”
“My friend, that kind of thought gives me the heebie jeebies,” Eykit admitted.
“We should take his horse and cart, put all of the toys in it, and burn down all of his buildings,” Almë suggested.
“We can definitely take the cart. Could Nathan have been hiding in the stall?” No one had looked. He wasn’t back there, but a mule was. If he had been in there, he was long gone now. Almë started loading the toys onto the cart, the few mostly complete ones that Nathan had left behind. Then he went back into Nathan’s house, looking for trap doors. He doesn’t find any. He also doesn’t find anything of value, except for some really good woodwork.
“Shouldn’t there be a lab or something around here?” Taid asked.
Almë answered, “But he was experimenting with demons, not really experimenting with undead. Does summoning demons require a lab?”
Taid nodded reluctantly. “Probably not.”
Almë loaded a bunch of chairs onto the cart. The chairs were very well made, although they aren’t overly decorated. When it came to Nathan’s furniture style, he seemed to create pieces that were minimalist, with clean lines. They managed to get four chairs and three end tables into the cart, tucking the toys in between, wherever there was space. The plan was to sell them to the inn or tavern.
“Half the tools were gone from the workshop,” Taid mentioned, his mind still on finding Nathan. “He’s got to have a place somewhere else around here.”
“We can go to town with this stuff,” Almë said. “Chill for a little while, and look at a map of the island. Then we can go looking for this guy. The island isn’t that big. If he’s got a second base, he’ll probably be there.”
They took the mule and cart and walked it back to town. As they emerged out of the jungle’s edge and entered the farmed fields, they saw that there was no one in the fields nearby, and, in the distance, the gates were shut. They had never seen the gates shut during the day before.
“It’s them! The marauders!”
“The bandits are here! The bandits are here!”
“Archers! Ready!” There was a flurry of movement as people from farther down the battlements rushed towards the area of the gate. Several armed people milled above the gate and to both sides, their attention on the four travelers and the dog with the horse and cart.
Eykit looked around at the cart, filled with contraband. “Well, the only evidence they have that we are bandits is this stolen horse, stolen cart, and a load of furniture whose provenance they can likely guess. We’re fucked. Ugh, I really should have thought this through. I’m getting sloppy. Nathan has probably ratted us out.”
“Well,” Elitheris said, “there is nothing in this cart that I’m really willing to fight over. It’s not worth it.”
The glint of avarice sparkled in Eykit’s eye. “But the horse is worth a tidy sum. Although a reputation as a horse thief isn’t all that great.”
“We can just turn around and leave,” Almë said, “and shout ‘Nathan is the bad guy!’ and if they follow us, we just kill them.” Almë could be a murderous little psychopath, when he put his mind to it.
Taid made a suggestion. “I think Eykit should try talking to them. He’s pretty good at that kind of thing.”
“The cart stays out of range. Eykit can go talk to them, but I’m staying here with the cart.”
Eykit sighed in relief, and sent a prayer to Kenjili, god of shadows and patron of thieves, thanking him for seeing fit to make Almë stay with the cart, out of trouble. Elitheris stayed with Almë, while Taid hurried to catch up with Eykit. If necessary, he could be a body shield if any of those archers decided to get froggy.
Eykit walked towards the palisade, his arms upraised and empty, hopefully letting the sentries know he wasn’t a threat. It was partially offset by the armored Dwarf walking beside him, but Taid had at least left Maggie back on the cart. He still wore a sidearm, though, and Eykit’s matching pair of rondels were obvious. Both looked tough as nails.
They were hailed when they got to within a hundred meters of the gates. “Leave! You are not welcome here!”
“We’re not bandits!” Eykit called up to them. “I know it looks that way, but we’re not!”
“You have assaulted one of our own! And you’ve stolen his stuff and you’re telling us you’re not bandits? That’s bullshit!”
“So…Nathan. Is he there?”
“That’s not your problem. Go away!”
“Actually, he is our problem, because he attacked us first!” Eykit knew he was lying, but he needed to win the propaganda war. And Nathan had the advantage.
“That’s not what he said.”
“We just want to talk with Nathan.”
“He is not interested in talking to the bandits that assaulted him.”
“He attacked us first. Ask him about his reanimated creature. How about the smoke monster?”
“We have no idea what you are talking about. Now you are just making things up.”
“We know, and that’s fine. He knows.” He was losing them, if he had ever had them in the first place. Looked at from their point of view, one of the townsfolk had been out minding his own business, got chased by some bandits, and nearly killed. And then they had stolen his things.
It wasn’t looking good. But he tried to turn on all the charm he could. It was an uphill battle; he had to persuade an entire crowd of people that didn’t like him.
“Nathan is a warlock! We are merely trying to track down a necromancer! There is necromancy happening, and we are trying to track it down. That’s all we are trying to do. We are trying to figure this out. There is a six year old child that was reanimated by an acquaintance of Nathan’s, and he knows it. The parents are bereaved about this; they have lost their only child. We are doing this for them.”
Taid quietly said to Eykit, “We found him at an ancient altar, in the middle of the night. And when he noticed us, he ran, which meant he was guilty of something.”
Eykit repeated that, then added, “All we wanted to do was question him. We wanted answers. And he wouldn’t even talk to us. I beg of you, listen: we didn’t want to hurt him. When we did, we healed him. We made sure he lived.” Then he added, “Make sure he lets you know that.”
He could see a couple of the people up there look questionably at the speaker, as if they were moved by Eykit’s words, but judging from the sudden looks of discomfort on their faces, their neighbors had just slammed their elbows in their sides to keep them quiet.
“We don’t know about any little girl. We just know that he was just going to some of the places he normally goes to and got attacked by a group of well armed thugs, bristling with weaponry you only find in the military.” That was something of an exaggeration. Only Taid had an obviously military weapon. Knives, bows, and staves were common in most places. Granted, Eykit’s rondels weren’t really “tools” in the sense of utility; they were designed specifically as a weapon. As a utility knife, they didn’t perform very well.
“He lied to us, also,” Taid said.
“You guys are as trustworthy as any other bandits or pirates. Look at the stuff you stole! That’s his cart, and his mule!”
Eykit thought fast. “Well, we planned to give it back, if he spoke to us.”
The speaker up on the palisade repeated, “He has no interest in speaking to the thugs that attacked him. He didn’t lift a finger against you.”
“When he’s ready to talk, we’ll give him his stuff.” “Then leave.”
“Alright! Fine. We’re leaving.” He turned around, a part of his mind worried that an arrow would slam into his back. None came. Almë was turning the cart around, in order to go back to Nathan’s house.
“What’s the plan?” Elitheris asked. “Obviously, it didn’t go very well.”
“No it did not,” Eykit said, dejectedly. “Nathan obviously got to them first, and turned them against us. Although, to be honest, I can’t really blame them. From their point of view, we are the aggressors. Have you looked at Taid recently? He’s a scary motherfucker. Babies cry when he enters a room.”
Taid didn’t appreciate the ribbing. Maybe the next time he’s at the alchemist’s shop he might pick up some itching powder to put into the crotch of Eykit’s gambeson. “Keep it up, runt,” he muttered.
“There are other ways to enter a town,” he continued. “We’ll go back there under cover of darkness. I don’t know if you noticed, but most of the townsfolk are Human. They don’t do so well in the dark. We, on the other hand, can see rather well at night.”
“Well, since the town hates us now, I suppose we don’t have to return that boat we rented, do we?” Eykit said. “And I saw a rowboat tied to Nathan’s dock. So, really, we have two boats now.”
Almë wanted to burn the house down.
“Why?” Eykit asked him.
“Because he is evil, and he probably has some stuff here that he needs. If we burn it all, he won’t be able to use it. It’s karma farming. Burning down the stuff of bad people is good.”
“Almë,” the little Goblin said, “your sense of ethics is severely stunted. I seem to have more ethics than you do, and I am considered a criminal. You are talking about a guy who makes toys for children, and just gives them away.”
“He’s obviously killing people, and summoning demons.”
“Is he? Did you see him summon anything? Or kill anyone? The town didn’t seem worried about missing people, or murders. Everyone seemed in pretty good spirits, actually. Be a nice place to live, if I could stand small towns.”
“He didn’t talk to us, so he’s probably evil.”
Eykit shook his head, smiling in chagrin. “Would you talk to someone who, first, barged into his shop and broke his stuff, then chased him down and broke his leg? I was close enough to hear his bone crack when you hit his leg. Not to mention the other guy—“ he indicated Taid—“who ran him through with a fucking polearm!”
“I still want to burn his place down.” He didn’t see the stricken look on Elitheris’ face. “It’ll act as a distraction!”
“No, Almë, no need to do that,” Taid said. “What is it with you and arson?” He shook his head.
“But he’s summoning demons in there!”
“It’s not like it’s an open demon portal. Pentagrams don’t work that way.”
“Fine. I’m tired. I’m taking a nap. We can burn it afterwards.”
Elitheris shuddered, remembering a certain forest fire from her past. “No fires,” she said softly. She knew that if the house or workshop burned, it would likely start a forest fire. At the very least, the smoke would be visible from town.
“We have enough enemies already. We don’t need to make any more.” Eykit stated. “It won’t help if we burn down the village.”
“When we’re done with the island, we can consider it.” Taid said. “Until we are done, it doesn’t make any sense to burn anything down.”
“Fine,” Almë said, resigned. “No fires.”
Several hours passed. Almë woke up screaming. He’d had one of his nightmares. In it, Lennerd had raised his wife Viryalossë as an undead, her flesh raw, stringy, and squirming like a mass of snakes, sliding over her bones as she raised her arms for an embrace. Her arms went around him, her head tilting for a kiss with lips that frayed into threads of bleeding flesh, her teeth unnaturally long and white. He woke only when he could feel her writhing lips on his own.
Although awake, he did not feel rested. He waited until his heart rate slowed back down to normal before standing up and rolling up his sleeping furs. He wiped a tear from his face as he tightened the straps holding the furs to his pack. He missed Viryalossë; he really didn’t like seeing her as one of the zombies he’d had to fight.
While Almë slept, so did the other three, in shifts. There weren’t willing to let Almë be on watch. They didn’t want to be asleep if Nathan came back. Each of them got about four hours of sleep. It helped.
They waited for night in order to sneak inside the town. Almë wanted to take all of the remaining toys and put them in the boat. Preferably to sell them, although he would be willing to just give them away to children. “It’s more important to me to take them away from Nathan than it is to make a profit.”
“Sacrilege!” Eykit said, smirking.
He also grabbed every chair in the house and workshop, and threw them in the river, shouting “This fucking guy won’t fucking sit anytime soon!” They slowly floated down stream. Almë felt better. His light mental breakdown over, he seemed easier to work with. He acted like 351 year old toddler.
“Now we don’t have anything to sit on!” Elitheris said. “Thanks!”
“We are leaving anyway!” Almë retorted.
They left the half finished toys in the workshop. Once it was dark enough, they piled into the canoe they had rented, along with the sack of toys. Mr. Wiggles, his place taken up by the bag, made himself as comfortable as he could upon it. Everyone else rowed the canoe downstream, passing Isleton Cove with the southern docks, and looping around the southern headland that lead in to Long Bay, at the end of which were the eastern docks. It was a dark night; the moon was a waning sliver.
They could see some lamps at both Isleton Cove as they passed by and Long Bay. The fishermen were all back in town, and lights could be seen from the town in the distance.
They reached the docks, tied up their canoe, leaving Mr. Wiggles tied to it as a guard dog, and made their way towards the city, sticking to the shadows. They could hear him whining as they left him on the docks. They were assuming that Nathan would likely be at the tavern or the inn, since he was a hermit and had no friends.
Taid got to within about fifteen meters of the wall when someone heard or spotted him. Shouts could be heard over the sounds of whistles blowing. “I see him! He’s over there!” The torchlight was glinting off his armor.
“Who? Which one is it?”
“The Dwarf! The Dwarf! He’s over here! “Where’re the others?”
“Don’t know! I only see the Dwarf!”
“Anyone got a pint?” Taid said. “I just want a drink!”
A pair of arrows flick by, one on each side of his head, and neither was too close. In the dark, they couldn’t get a good read on his exact position. Starlight, the crescent moon, and a couple of flickering torches just weren’t enough to see him well enough. But there was always the chance that they might get lucky.
Eykit found a rock double the size of his fists, and hurled it away from him. It crashed into a pile of hay left over from the reaping, making a rustling noise. Eykit could hear the thudding of a pair of arrows as they hit the earth in that direction. The sentries were panicking. To Almë and Taid, they seemed like an untrained militia, rather than a professional fighting force.
Taid wasn’t being very stealthy, and the sentries reacquired him, sending three more arrows his way. One was so far away that he didn’t worry about that one, but he ducked and wove to avoid the other two. Neither hit him.
While the sentries were busy with Taid, the other three managed to get to the base of the palisade wall. They could hear the sentries running around on the catwalk on the inside of the wall, and their shouts as they tried to coordinate some kind of defense against the bandits. The twanging of bowstrings could be heard as they tried to shoot him with arrows, but they didn’t hear any screams of pain, so they figured that Taid was okay.
Elitheris knew that if they were using hunting bows, and not warbows, there wasn’t much chance of going through his armor. But there was always the chance of a lucky hit that found a gap.
Almë, Elitheris, and Eykit climbed up the wall. It was smoothed logs, and any branches that would have made good handholds had been cut off. So it wasn’t the easiest of climbs, although it was easier than scaling a smooth stone wall.
Almë got up to the top of the wall, peering carefully over it to locate the sentries. He could see several sentries running around trying to find the intruders. He levered himself over as quietly as he could and crouched on the catwalk.
Eykit popped over and crouched on the catwalk. His small form was nearly invisible in the deep shadow of the wall.
Elitheris flipped over the wall, landing between a pair of barrels filled with sheaves of arrows for the archers on the wall to use. She was quite pleased with this, and grabbed a couple of sheaves of arrows to restock her supply. It took her a bit of time to sort through the sheaves, looking for arrows that could be used with her bow. She considered tossing the rest over the palisade wall, but dismissed the petty thought. She hoped it wouldn’t bite her in the ass later.
Almë had little time before he would be seen, so he leaped off the catwalk to the ground, four meters below. He came down hard on his left ankle, rolling it, and pain shot up through his leg. He managed not to cry out, however, and managed remaining unnoticed.
Eykit was a bit luckier, because a ladder was nearby. It was rough hewn, like the rest of the scaffold-like catwalk and the palisade wall. Normally, he would have done a ladder slide, but he had to modify that a bit due to the unevenness of the ladder construction. He dexterously made descending the ladder look easy, however. Once down, he found a handy shadow and become one with the darkness.
Elitheris looked at the catwalk, locating sentries. She could see a dozen down one way, and a half dozen down the other. She waited for an opportune time, then leapt off the catwalk, somersaulting in the air, but mistimed the landing. She came down hard, and was glad no one saw the lousy landing. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice her move into the shadows of the nearby house. She moved into the shadows of a woodpile.
Taid ran towards the wall, trying to get to the base of the palisade. A handful of arrows whisked by him, but none hit him. He made it to the wall, pressing his back against it and peering upward to make sure no falling objects were on their way to flatten him. There were three gates into the town: west, south, and east. He ran northward, holding his halberd against the wall so it thunked with each log. It made a satisfying “thunk thunk thunk” noise as he ran.
“Get the rocks!” He heard above him. “Get the oil!” A moment later, he heard some loud thumps behind him, the sounds of rocks hitting hard packed earth. Judging from the sound, the rocks were at least the size of his head.
Taid’s companions could hear a commotion, and could see the sentries scurrying around, apparently following Taid. The heat was a bit off of them.
Eykit scanned the area. He was in the eastern residential area, and he knew that all of the commercial buildings were in the center of town. The shrine, the city hall, tavern, inn, barber, and general store were all in the central square, where two days a week they held the market. He made his way towards the center of town. He kept to the shadows, because he could see people moving through town, carrying lanterns. There weren’t a lot of them, but there were enough to make casually walking through town problematic. But no one saw him; he was one with the night.
Elitheris looked about, getting her bearings. Like Eykit, she knew the basic layout of the town, although she hadn’t visited this section. She couldn’t see Eykit or Almë, but she did see, off in the distance down the street, a sentry carrying a lantern. Apparently, the whole town was on alert, although most of the ad hoc militia seemed to be on the catwalks.
She assumed that Nathan was most likely in the inn, or the tavern. She remembered that the two buildings were separated by the barber. She headed towards the general direction of the center of town. She crept from shadow to shadow, avoiding the occasional sentry. Once past the outer perimeter, it got a bit easier. While she could see the occasional sentry wandering around with a lantern, there weren’t that many of them. Most of the able-bodied militia were at the walls.
Almë limped into the shadows of a building between the raised bed of the kitchen garden and the house itself. There, he wrapped his ankle to stabilize it. It hurt, but his foot could still support his weight. It was tender, but it didn’t really slow him down. He moved from the shadows, and almost got caught by a sentry, but managed to duck into a doorway and not be seen.
Eykit, crouching in a bush, looked out into the market square. There wasn’t anyone in the marketplace area, so he started looking into the windows of the inn. Just as he was about to peer into the window, however, he heard someone turn a corner nearby. He dove into the alcove of a doorway, hardly breathing. The sentry held aloft his lantern, looked about, but didn’t see anything and went on his way.
Elitheris also got to the marketplace area. She could see the occasional patrol, but managed to avoid them. She found herself by the tavern, undiscovered as of yet. She crouched between an empty crate and a barrel of rainwater, hidden from view from most directions.
Almë, his ankle bound, also made his way towards the center of town. About halfway there, he was spotted by a sentry from a half a block away, who ran towards him, yelling an alert and blowing on his whistle. “Shit,” Almë muttered, as he took off down a side street. He ducked between two houses and found some shadows to move through so he wouldn’t be seen. He hoped he had found the cover of darkness before being seen by the sentry, but he wasn’t sure. And there was always the possibility that the sentry guessed which way he went even if he hadn’t been seen.
Taid pulled out his darkness strip, and moved it around him, deepening the darkness that lay at the base of the wall. He could hear a bunch of sentries running along the catwalk, thinking that he had kept running in that direction. He paused, thinking, then moved back the way he came, as quietly as he could. Fortunately, he thought, all that running around they are doing is making plenty of noise. From the sounds of it, the catwalk wasn’t solidly attached to the wall, but tied off in spots to stabilize it. He could hear it creaking and banging on the palisade every time someone ran past. They really should have nailed it to the wall in a more secure fashion. But hey, it helps me out, so I won’t complain to their building managers.
He pulled out a rope, and tied a noose on one end. Then he tried to cast the spell of Apportation, but the magic eluded him. He sighed, tried again, and this time succeeded. The loop of rope lifted into the air, and he guided it until he could drop it over the tapered end of the log. He tugged it tight, then scaled the wall. He got up to the top without much difficulty, and saw that the people were far enough away for him to roll over the top of the wall. He landed on the catwalk, which shifted slightly under his weight. It was less a catwalk and more like a scaffold, although it was at least tied to the inside wall of the palisade. Yep, he thought, definitely should have nailed this sucker to the wall. Shoddy building practices! He resisted the urge to shift his weight back and forth to rock the scaffold and prove his point.
But it was only a matter of time before someone saw him up there. He could see thatched roofs, but he would possibly fall right through them if he jumped onto them. He grabbed his rope and coiled it, crouching on the catwalk. A ladder was nearby, and he used that to get down to ground level. He moved into the shadowed side of a house.
He looked for a bush to conceal him. He planned to use the darkness strip to hide in again. Then he could make noises as distractions, and not be seen. He could see the occasional sentry, armed with spears or pitchforks or other farming implements. Every now and then, they would call out to each other, asking if anyone had seen anything. So far, so good, he thought. No one’s been found yet.
“Hey, I see him!” Taid heard, off in the distance. Of course I just had to jinx it! He knew he hadn’t been seen, so a sentry must have gotten lucky and found one of the others. Almë probably found a torch and was trying to burn down the city….
Eykit waited for the sentry to leave, then crept out of the doorway and went back to looking into the rooms of the inn. The first room he looked into was unoccupied. When they had stayed there, only two of the four rooms had been used; the other two had been empty. One had been theirs, the other one had been used by Johann, the bard. Eykit could hear, faintly, music being played.
Elitheris was at the tavern, between the crate and barrel. She peeked into a window, trying not to been seen herself. On the other side of the window was a table, with two people at it, talking. Several glasses, most of them empty, sat on the table. The two of them had been there for a little while, drinking and talking. She didn’t recognize either of them. She could see other people in the tavern, mostly elderly. The able-bodied were apparently part of the neighborhood watch, either at the walls, or roaming around the streets.
Almë was hiding in an alley, trying to shake the tail on him. He could hear the sentry running down the nearby street. The Elf crouched behind a shrub, and he could see the man stop, looking down between the buildings where Almë hid. The man didn’t seem to see him, and he continued to run down to the next gap between buildings. Almë waited for the sentry to move farther away before creeping out and making his way again towards the center of town. He got lucky the sentry thought he had gone farther down the street before cutting between houses.
Taid, hiding in the bushes, waited until a sentry passed. Then, when they were a dozen or more meters away, he would make a noise, attracting their attention. But because they were never looking in the direction of the sound, they couldn’t quite pinpoint it, and with the darkness strip providing cover against their lanterns, they never saw him.
He certainly made them jumpy, though. Especially since they were all alone, trying to cover the entire town with limited manpower. They were stretched thin. They weren’t used to having to defend the whole town; usually that was the job of the professional military. Most of the river defense was handled by the nearby naval base. It was the naval base just north of Port Karn that patrolled the river byways against pirates and other threats.
Which brought to mind a horrible thought. Did the town send someone with a message to the naval base, asking for help against pirates or brigands? If so, they could be in a world of hurt. Tondene marines weren’t pushovers. And fighting them was tantamount to taking on all of the Tondene Empire, because they don’t take kindly to folks attacking their military units. Unit pride would make them want revenge if any of their members were killed. But, Taid reasoned, if they did come after us, they would be professional and likely try for custody, rather than just outright killing us. Especially if we tried talking our way out. We’d probably get taken in and put in the brig until we could be heard, though. But they likely won’t just kill us. He put thoughts like that out of his head, at least for the moment. He had more pressing concerns.
Eykit went to the next window and peeked into it. This room was Johann’s, and he was in it, on the bed, playing the lute and singing to himself. The expression on his face was resigned. To the Goblin, it seemed strange that he wasn’t in the tavern, playing for an audience.
Every now and then, she could hear him sigh heavily, as if he wasn’t pleased about his current situation.
Elitheris moved to the next window at the tavern, keeping low and in the shadows wherever possible. It was the same room, just a different view. She was able to hear “He’s over at the healer’s,” but she didn’t know the context, or who the healer was. Or where the healer was. She knew that there wasn’t an apothecary, and that the town was small enough that the person who was the healer likely had a different primary profession, or just did healing part time as required.
It was time to meet up with her companions, so she found herself a hiding spot where she could continue to listen. She eyed the chimney, which tapered, and used it to climb up to the roof. The roof was, like most of the other buildings in town, thatched, but as long as she stayed by the chimney and didn’t move much, no one would be able to hear her up there. But up there, she would be able to see her friends if they showed up. In fact, she could see Eykit two buildings away, looking in windows. He was a darker shadow within the shadow cast by the eaves of the building, but she knew him by his size and the way he moved. It’s likely no one who didn’t know Eykit would have seen him.
Elitheris made the sound of a nightingale, as a signal to Eykit.
Eykit, on reflex, ducked deeper into the shadows, because that sound definitely wasn’t a bird. He wasn’t sure what kind of bird call it was supposed to be, but he relaxed, because it was just Elitheris, trying and failing to mimic a avian. He hoped she didn’t call attention of the wrong kind to herself. He kept silent, listening for any changes in the ambient soundscape. He waited for a long minute, but nothing sounded out of the ordinary.
He looked up, where the sound came from, and saw a silhouette crouched by the chimney on the roof. It was indeed Elitheris. He did not reply to her signal.
Taid moved around, knowing that he would be found eventually if he kept making noise and didn’t relocate. He waited until there was no one about, then moved a couple of blocks, and again found a hiding spot from which to mess with the sentries.
Almë made it to the center of town, and found himself near the shrine. He looked around, and saw some movement by the inn, in the shadows. He sneaked through the shadows, making it across the marketplace towards the inn. Almë eyed the awning over the porch, looking for a way up onto the roof of the inn.
There was a post that made a convenient way up to the roof. He checked around, looking for any sentries close enough to see him. He didn’t see any, so he climbed up the post, the decorative lathing making it relatively easy.
Eykit heard some noise from the other side of the building. From what it sounded like, someone climbed up onto the roof. He looked around the corner, and saw a man, silhouetted against the stars, crouching an holding a quarterstaff, moving across the roof. It was Almë. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up skylining himself and getting caught. Which would make it more difficult for everyone else. Eykit knew that at some point, he was going to have to teach that Elf some proper stealth procedures. He had some natural aptitude, but he was missing some of the fundamentals. But then, being a gardener didn’t really give one a lot of opportunities to practice being sneaky.
Almë moved to one of the chimneys, using its shadow as cover. He looked around, but didn’t see anyone he knew. He was the first person to get to the inn, as far as he knew.
Taid noticed that the number of sentries in his area was getting to be high as a result of his noisemaking. He was going to have to move. He moved from the bush he was in to the shadowed corner of a building, then it was a spot under a wagon while a pair of sentries walked briskly by, then it was between a pair of barrels, then to a dark spot under a deck. It was a close call, but the Dwarf squirreled his way out from the closing noose of sentries. His distractions had worked well enough to have four sentries in his general area.
He moved to another part of the residential areas. He was able to hear, on occasion, what the sentries were exchanging information about. So far, there was no concrete evidence that the marauders had infiltrated the town, but no one was sure, and no one wanted to take any chances. And they kept hearing suspicious noises, although some of them thought that there might be a prankster messing with them.
It was time for Taid to make some more noise. “Little Johnny plays the fools, go to bed and take your tools!”
That got someone’s attention. “What was that?” came a voice.
“I dunno, what did they say?” came another.
“I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t understand it all. Something about Johnny!” came a third.
“Which Johnny?”
Shouts crisscrossed the area; the sentries were converging on Taid’s position again, as they tried to triangulate where the sound had come from. He could hear running feet on the cobblestones, coming closer.
Eykit could hear, in the distance, the sentries calling to each other. Taid was out there, making distractions. Eykit now knew where everyone was, more or less. He looked into the next window, and it was the room they had used. It was empty, as was the one next to it. All of the inn’s guest rooms were accounted for. He also looked into the common room, where he saw the innkeeper, alone, sitting at a table, drinking. He looked worried in the light of the few candles he had lit.
He had the feeling that few people were getting any sleep this evening.
He could hear, faintly, noises from the tavern two buildings down. So he knew there were people there. The only people that seemed to be here were the innkeeper and Johann, who was under what seemed to be a kind of house arrest. It’s possible the townies thought he was one of the marauders, or they had told him to stay in his room for his own protection.
He decided to go back to the window to Johann’s room. He had tipped the bard rather well for playing when they had talked. So it was possible that Johann wouldn’t rat him out right away. He tapped on the window. Johann looked out the window, trying to see what the noise was.
Eykit had moved back so he could be seen. He didn’t want to be too close and scare him. Jump scaring the bard would, at best, result in him alerting anyone nearby with his shout of alarm. Best to not do that.
“Ah!” he said, surprised. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be in a house somewhere? There are marauders out there!”
“Marauders?”
“Yeah, there are some bandits, or marauders roaming around. They attacked the local toymaker. Almost killed him; he barely escaped with his life! Then they robbed his house!”
“That’s horrible!”
“I know, right? It’s terrible! The whole town is locked down.”
“Is he okay?”
“Not really. He got taken to the healer. He got messed up pretty bad.”
“Oh gods, I wonder if I should take cover somewhere?”
“Yeah, you probably should. It’s dangerous out there. Are you part of the neighborhood watch all of a sudden?”
“No, I, uh, got really wasted and passed out in an alley.” Eykit rubbed his face, as if massaging the cobblestone marks out of his cheek.
Johann looked sympathetic. He nodded, rueful. “Been there, done that. The whiskey here isn’t the best. The ale’s all right, but the whiskey is barely passable.”
Now it was Eykit’s turn to look rueful. “And at my size…I had way too much. But it’s the only thing they have here, though.”
“Yeah, as far as cocktails go, it doesn’t stand up. It’s not bad, for what’s here.”
“Anyway, sorry to disturb you. I just heard you playing, and I love your stuff. And I just wanted to let you know.”
He was touched. “Aw, thank you very much,” he said, smiling.
“Yeah, it reminds me of home.”
“Really? That’s nice.”
Eykit held his head, wincing. “So, you’re telling me people are on edge?”
“Everybody here is on edge. They are just farmers, against some rather rough customers. And I’m stuck in my room! Can you believe it? They’re not even letting me play in the tavern.”
“What? Why?”
He threw his hands up over his head in a gesture of exasperation. “They think I might be some kind of advanced spy for the marauders or something. So here I am, under house arrest.”
“You’d think they would use you to calm people down.”
“You’d think. I would’ve thought that, but noooo.”
“They are really worried about the marauders, because they totally messed this guy up. They attacked him for no good gods damned reason.”
“Alright. Well. Ugh, I guess I’m going to go sleep it off. I’ve got that legendary whiskey headache.”
“I don’t know how legendary the whiskey here is, although it might gain a ‘legendary’ reputation that won’t be so favorable!”
Eykit started to walk away, but turned with a thought. “Hey. You mentioned a healer. Got any idea where they are? Maybe I can get something tomorrow morning when this all blows over. Somehow I don’t think the healer would like someone pounding on their door. Might think it was a marauder and stab me.”
“Wise idea. All I know is that it’s in the northern part of town. I don’t know specifically where their house is. Apparently this is the person they call when there is a farming accident or something.”
“Okay. I think I’m going to go back to the stable where I can sleep this off.”
“Hey. Watch out for those militia guys. They aren’t the best trained army I’ve seen. They are likely to stab you as look at you. Doesn’t help that they are scared shitless.”
“I haven’t seen a single one out here.”
“Seriously? Maybe I should sneak out!”
“If they’re out here, there aren’t many. I came straight here from the stable. And I didn’t see anybody. But there is a lot of yelling out there.”
“Have to admit that I’m not terribly surprised they don’t act like a professional military. These guys are farmers. They are just following orders and going by the numbers. And by the looks of it, they don’t do this very often.”
“Well, thanks. Appreciate it. Let’s just say I feel like shit, so I’m gonna go lay down.”
“Yeah, you don’t look so good.”
And he didn’t. He was a good enough actor to both look like crap due to over drinking, and to ensure that Johann wasn’t aware that Eykit was one of the marauders in question.
Rewards Granted
4 CP
Bad reputation and possible legal problems
Bad reputation and possible legal problems
Character(s) interacted with
Johann Amhearst, a traveling musician.
Some nameless militia sentry who told them they weren't welcome in Isleton any more
Some nameless militia sentry who told them they weren't welcome in Isleton any more
Report Date
15 Apr 2023
Primary Location
Secondary Location
Related Characters
Comments