Episodes 33 & 34 - The Quest for Elovyn Sorrosong: "The Betrayer" & "K'Varn, at last!"
Sword of Air
Episode XXXIII
The Betrayer
*
Meanwhile, Mherren sends Viper to continue his investigation of the fortress. He finds a room containing a large chest spilling over with coins, gems and other treasures, and a corridor that leads to a descending spiral staircase. At the bottom, a wide, high archway leads on to the mezzanine floor of a brazier-lit chamber. From the lower floor, out of sight, he can hear the same two voices he overheard before:
“Summon the King,” says the deeper, more guttural voice. “Have him ready the Duergar. And send the Ulitharid with them – no matter we have not yet found the sword. That treacherous Spider Queen shall pay for what she has done to me…”
“Yes, master. Right away, master.”
“And Varg…”
“Yes, master?”
“I’m concerned about Bob… He looks… different, somehow.”
“He has matured, master, is all. You’ve been gone many days.”
“Yes. That’s probably it… Now go!”
*
Against every instinct, Haji Baba, her face drawn and drained of blood, creeps over to investigate the portcullis, which she now sees leads out to a large, external courtyard. At the far end is an enormous, bronze statue, facing away and looking out over the rear battlements of Runor.
Beneath the statue, two shadowy figures appear deep in wordless conversation. One is stocky and bearded, the other tall and slender and hovering just above the ground. A strange, orb-like creature floats towards them. It is the same beast she saw emerge from the Sunless Sea carrying a fish in its toothy maw. It addresses the other figures, but Haji Baba can’t make out the words.
She signals to Lightstrike with an elaborate series of hand gestures. Uncomprehending, he goes to join her, just managing to resist the sudden assault upon his sanity as he passes close to the captive central nervous system of the Illithid colony.
“What did you say?” he whispers from beneath illusory tentacles as he approaches.
“I said come take a look at this,” replies Haji Baba.
“Oh. Okay.” And straining his feline ears, he makes out snippets of conversation.
“It is time … The Demon Goddess shall pay for her impudence! … Send psychic instruction to Nidlhammer … We march at once! … Moradin – you know the plan. Go with Xargraata to the Elder One … It is still beholden to the Yuggoth. Have it bring forth the Illithids, too … The Drow will be annihilated!”
Haji Baba freezes as the two called Xargraata and Moradin head towards her… and turn into a side door back into a wing of the fortress. The orb-monster floats up and overhead, out of sight.
“We should get out of here,” whispers Haji Baba, looking round to find Lightstrike has scarpered. He’s already at a side door, dextrously picking the lock. As he disappears, wraithlike, the Druid runs after him, taking care to stick to the edges of the room, well away from the pulsating Elder Brain. They meet Viper, just reaching the top of the spiral stairs, and follow him to find Mherren and the others.
*
“What are we doing up her?” asks Mherren, loudly, in an abandoned chamber somewhere on the top floor of the labyrinthine citadel.
“We’re hiding,” Zimlok whispers back from underneath a bed, just his pointy hat poking out.
“Why are we hiding? Aren’t we supposed to be fearless heroes on a daring rescue mission?”
“Well, yes, we are, but… we’re strategizing,” says Zimlok, flustered.
“I’ve had enough of this!” croaks Kla’rota. “Xargraata must pay!” And he floats off down the corridor in search of his nemesis, Mherren invisibly hot on his heels.
“Darn it!” curses Zimlok, scrabbling out from beneath the bed and scrambling after his companions.
*
Kla’rota, sensing his archenemy’s presence through his psionic link with the hive mind, makes a beeline for the room containing the Elder Brain, and nearly bowls over Haji Baba and Lightstrike as he whisks through the empty halls.
He enters the Brain room, where Xargraata the Ulitharid, and Moradin, enslaved King of the Duergar, now stand. Upon the dais, Xargraata stoops over the stone vat, his arms plunged deep inside as though he is searching for something beneath the throbbing mass of alien grey matter. Next to him, Moradin holds two brain dogs on leashes.
As he becomes aware of Kla’rota hovering at the entrance, Xargraata turns and pulls himself up to his full, intimidating height. He is a full three feet taller than Kla’rota, and oozes a dark majesty. If anyone could hear the alien, psychic exchange that follows, they would surely have been impressed by its wit, and its dramatic expression of the ongoing feud between these two powerful Mind Flayers. But all our heroes see as they peer with trepidation around the door jamb are a few tense moments of silence followed by the slight narrowing of Xargraata’s pupilless, pink eyes.
Suddenly Kla’rota tenses, as though resisting some unseen force, and Haji Baba hurls one of her lightning javelins at the Ulitharid. Mherren follows with several wild swings of his sword and a devastating scorching ray of demonic fire, and Lightstrike casts sleep on the two brain dogs, which instantly turn on to their backs and begin snoring blissfully. Not to be outdone, Zimlok ensorcells Moradin, who has magically enlarged himself to the size of an ogre, and is charging straight towards the diminutive Wizard. With a flick of his feathered wrist, Zimlok afflicts the King with uncontrollable bouts of Tasha’s hideous laughter, which twist the Duergar’s face into a hideous and unnaturally wide grin.
Kla’rota raises his arms melodramatically and Xargraata is lifted helplessly into the air.
“Show us what you can do, Wizard,” Kla’rota rasps at Zimlok, who responds by blasting the Ulitharid with Aganazzar’s scorcher. As Kla’rota concentrates on his telekinesis spell, Zimlok and Lightstrike both pop out of their illusory Mind Flayer forms. Haji Baba also suddenly appears, snarling savagely before the still-chortling Moradin as her invisibility wears off, and she bonks him on the nose with her thunderstaff.
Moradin appears to experience a moment of clarity, and looks about him in confusion, before his form goes limp, and Haji Baba proceeds to grind the butt of her staff into his unseeing eyes, pressing down hard until Dwarf brains splatter all over her. She turns to her companions, skin pale, eyes bloodshot, and grins a manic grin, licking her lips as bits of Duergar-brain slide slowly down her cheeks.
“Eeewww!” says Mherren, retching as he too becomes visible once more.
Haji Baba turns her depravity upon Xargraata, and lashes out at him with her thorn whip, then…
“Aithinndée!” comes a now-familiar holler, and the Sword of Idu Maagog is instantly swathed in flames as Lightstrike clicks the heels of his boots of haste and takes a running leap at the suspended form of Xargraata M’thilid. With one arcing slice he brings the sword down in mid air and cleaves the Ulitharid clean in two, rolling as he lands and springing to his feet, his chest heaving and his muscles rippling. An unnatural darkness has spread around his eyes and the rune on his forehead glows brightly.
“Show off,” mutters Mherren beneath his breath, and skewers one of the snoring brain dogs with Pyron.
Behind Lightstrike, the Elder Brain pulses with energy and strangles the remaining brain dog with its now-writhing tentacles.
Zimlok hunkers over the singed and lifeless form of Xargraata, which now lies upon the floor, and picks curiously at his exposed brain.
Cautiously, he places a morsel in his beak… and swallows. A wave of sickness, and suddenly he is confronted with the image of a large, black, pulsing stone in his mind’s eye, submerged in a viscous, clear fluid, and above which is suspended a diseased-looking mass of brain-like tissue. The image hits him with an almost palpable impact, and Zimlok clutches his head as a wave of pain courses through his temples. Then the Elder Brain’s tentacles grow still once more.
But there is no time to contemplate the meaning of this peculiar image, for Kla’rota turns to them with a crazed look and cries: “Vengeance is mine!”
“Erm, well it was mainly ours, really,” says Mherren.
“Hah! No matter! You are useless to me now!” And Kla’rota unleashes a blast of psionic energy that brings Lightstrike to his knees.
“Betrayer!” screams Haji Baba, summoning a beam of moonlight that shines like a blinding stage light upon the Illithid.
“You… promised!” whimpers Lightstrike.
“Only fools and children tell the truth,” rasps Kla’rota, his tentacles twitching with malice. “Illithids lie!”
To which Mherren, muttering prayers to the Demogorgon, gathers purple demonic flames in his palms and sends them shooting out towards the traitor. But his wrath is too strong and, siphoning too much power from his Demon patron, he loses control, and the scorching ray sears the walls of the chamber instead.
But the moon beam has been growing steadily in intensity, and even as he cackles, Kla’rota’s emaciated form curls and blackens beneath its agonising heat. A psychic scream resonates through their minds: “Noooooooooo!”
And Kla’rota Xi-Huitl expires.
“Well, that was unexpected,” says Zimlok, gathering up Kla’rota’s helmet, and…
“Rrrrraaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”
Zimlok steps gingerly out of the way as Mherren comes charging in and barbarically carves up Kla’rota’s unmoving form with his great-sword. Observing this unhinged brutality, his friends wonder what disturbing past experience has triggered Mherren’s extreme reaction to Klar’rota’s treachery.
Once his anger is spent, Mherren slumps down against a wall, and Lightstrike tentatively approaches and offers him Moradin’s warhammer and chainmail hauberk. “There you go, buddy. Feel better.” Mherren tacitly accepts, and Lightstrike slinks away to join Haji Baba. But seeing her blood-smeared, ghostly hue and dark expression, he thinks better of it and goes to sit by himself instead.
Meanwhile, Zimlok is conducting an interview with the Elder Brain, his bird brain apparently unaffected by its maddening influence.
“Do you know of an Elf within these walls, Brain?”
After a few moments, a weak and sickly voice speaks into his mind.
“There is one such, yes. And another – a human. They were taken to the dungeon, awaiting K’Varn’s return from Arach-Lluth. Having successfully tamed the Duergar, he was trying to bend the Dark Elves to his will, also. But it would seem that in Llolth, the Queen of Spiders, he has met his match. For upon his return he appeared to be grievously injured, and not at his full strength.
“If you attack now, you might stand a chance. Delay, and you risk all, for he is indeed a powerful entity. Not least because there is some other power behind him, something which he serves, and which has caused me to sicken so, and lose my hold over my colony. Only this disease has enabled Xargraata to usurp me and bring me here to suffer! I still maintain the hive mind, but it is K’Varn who directs my will.”
“What does he serve?”
“I… know not…”
“Of course you don’t. Well, if we can defeat K’Varn, and release you from his dominion, will you give us safe passage out of here?”
“I will. I, Kheremblethoth, the Central Hive, want only to be freed of K’Varn’s tyranny, and the unnatural sickness with which he afflicts me. I just… I just wanna be me…”
The Brain’s voice grows pathetic, and Zimlok narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Hmmm. Well, perhaps you will. Perhaps you won’t. Or perhaps we will go see this Spider Queen and make a pact with her to join our forces against you. What say you to that?”
Sneering: “Llolth… would kill you on sight.”
“Yes. Well. Er, just one more thing…”
Sinister: “Yes?”
“Would you mind awfully if we dumped these bodies in your pool?”
“Erm… well…”
Splish! Splosh!
Mherren walks away from the vat, dusting his hands of Illithid guts and Duergar brains. “’Nuff chat! We’ve an Elf to find!”
*
Our heroes venture down the spiral stairwell to the room where Viper overheard K’Varn speaking with Varg. Creeping down from the mezzanine, they find the chamber is empty, apart from a beautiful, glistening fish with pink- and blue-flashing iridescent scales, flicking to and fro in a large bowl.
Behind the bowl is a large, oaken desk, upon which are strewn several scrolls and fragments of parchment, spilling out from a white silken satchel that is embroidered with Elvish letters in golden thread. Zimlok gives them a cursory look over, noticing that some appear to refer to magical swords and eldritch evils. “Just the sort of thing we’ve been looking for!” he squawks, and he gathers up the scrolls and hoiks the bag over his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Haji Baba and Lightstrike are meticulously searching the doors, walls, and adjoining passages for a thoroughfare wide enough for a Beholder to fit through. But to no avail. All they find are strangely melted walls decorated with gruesome, petrified heads of Mind Flayers, Duergar, Grimlocks and Svirfneblin.
“What now, then?” asks Mherren, nonchalantly leaning against a section of wall next to a barred iron door.
… And his hand passes straight through the wall!
He sticks his head through, and finds himself looking into a wide tunnel carved into the rock upon which the fortress stands. His Orcish eyes glint and narrow: “Found you!”
* * *
What in the Seven Heavens is the mysterious, submerged, black stone that Zimlok saw after consuming a portion of Illithid brain?
Will our courageous heroes find Elovyn and escape the citadel unnoticed by its over-eyendowed proprietor…?
Will they concoct a cunning plan based on the intelligence they have gathered?
Will they take advantage of the imminent invasion of the Dark Elves’ territories, which would conveniently leave Ilthe Ba’Manza empty of Mind Flayers and Nidlhammer empty of Duergar…
Will they capitalise on the potential weakness they have uncovered in K’Varn, regarding his soft spot for a certain “Bob”…?
Or will they just plough on blindly and end up in a desperate and entirely avoidable battle for their lives…?
Find out in the next mind-bending episode of…
The Sword of Air!
Episode XXXIV
K’Varn, at last!
*
And what a haul! A huge pile of coins, gems and trinkets spreads across most of the floor. And there, in the corner – what is this? A treasure chest! No doubt also brimming with gold! Zimlok, his eyes wide with avarice, reaches out to touch the lid…
… And finds himself adhered to a gelatinous, crazed, gnashing monster as the chest transforms into a gurgling, drooling, amorphous mass with a huge, black maw filled with enormous teeth.
Somehow the Wizard extracts himself from the mimic’s adhesive form, and Haji Baba bonks it sharply with the end of her thunderstaff, sending a charge of electricity coursing through it. Then it suffers a double dose of righteous fire, as the Tongue of Maagog and the scorching fire elemental that is Mherren both burn it until it begins to liquefy.
Step forward, Zimlok the Lightbringer.
Casually tossing three enchanted gold coins in one palm, he wipes some sticky ooze from his beak with the back of the other hand and, raising one eyebrow so that he looks cocky and cool, quips: “I’d like to make a deposit!”
He hurls the gold coins at the creature; it ceases its writhing and grows still.
*
Sifting through the pile of treasure, which must surely number nearly 1,500 gold pieces of Elven and Svirfneblin mint, as well as many cut sapphires and emeralds, our companions uncover several items of curiosity or worth. There is a huge uncut diamond, a spell scroll, several healing potions, and a thick tome of Dark Elven incantations. Leafing through, Zimlok greedily soaks up the names of the spells, and looks forward eagerly to copying them into his own spell book: Feign Death, Fireball, Hunger of Hadar, Major Image, Phantom Steed, Sending, Speak with Dead, and Tongues.
They find a Dwarven great axe, a necklace of dessicated tongues of various shapes and sizes, and three exquisitely crafted arrows with translucent, crystalline heads. A mace inscribed with the name of Moradin glows with an internal fire, and a set of ancient-looking bellows bear the words: ‘Breath of the King’. There is a slender dagger with an impossibly sharp blade, upon whose twisted ebony hilt is carved the name, ‘Whisper’. (Zimlok, assuming this to be an instruction, whispers at the dagger and stares at it expectantly for several moments before tossing it aside in disappointment.)
There is a sickle edged with diamond, a thick weightlifting-style belt of black leather decorated with spider web designs and Drow sigils, and an amulet in the shape of a hammer that is densely carved with Dwarven runes that spell the word ‘Dwarfkin’.
“Aha! The rune I have been seeking to turn my Dwarfbond hammer into a returning weapon!” cries Mherren triumphantly.
Lastly, they find a gleaming piece of shaped metal, of shining gold in colour yet practically weightless, which Zimlok – still in a state of disgust and not quite thinking straight – goes to chuck out of the window. The curved metal blade begins to spin as it leaves his hand, and follows a sweeping, curved trajectory through the still air of the cavern outside before whizzing back to hit him square in the face, knocking him out cold.
“Hahahahahahaaha!” Mherren, whose elemental form has now fizzled, bellows with mirth, and the others join in, even Zellingar and Elovyn, as the stress and tense anxiety of the last few days in the Underdark is finally released as laughter. They double over, slapping each other’s backs in merriment, as a large egg swells up upon the unconscious birdman’s noggin.
*
When they recover, and Zimlok begins to stir and rub his head, Haji Baba goes to study the bellows. A curious object, indeed. She ponders for a while, before tucking them into the spiderwebbed belt that she has claimed, and uses to hitch her trousers over her Halfling paunch.
“Perhaps there is a way down from the courtyard?” suggests Lightstrike, and they make their way to the quadrangle where Xargraata and Moradin had been lurking by the statue. But they are met only with a precipitous drop of several hundred feet straight down to the river below.
On close inspection, the statue appears to represent a heavily armoured Dwarven king with a mighty warhammer. It is hewn of bronze, and its pedestal bears the name of Durthane. Oddly, the mouth is shaped to form a spherical slot.
Zimlok scratches his beak thoughtfully, and then snatches the bellows from Haji Baba’s belt and shins up the statue to thrust the end of the bellows into the hole. His legs wrapped around Durthane’s neck for purchase, he works the bellows a few times. At first, nothing happens. But then the giant statue takes a huge, metallic intake of breath, and its great legs move as it breaks free from its pedestal. As the golem lurches clumsily forwards, Zimlok loses his balance and, after flailing his arms for a few humiliating moments, is thrown unceremoniously to the ground. Looking up fearfully from under the shadow of this hulking metal dwarf, he is pleasantly surprised when Durthane’s golem looks down at him and jerkily takes a bow. A grating, discordant voice emerges from the thing’s chest and addresses him in Dwarvish: “Master,” it says simply.
“Yay! We have our own pet golem!” rejoices Mherren in a most unwarlocklike fashion, before remembering to look suitably dark and brooding.
“Well, there’s no way down from here,” utters Lightstrike.
“Let’s keep looking inside,” says Haji Baba. “There must be a way!”
And as they wander back into the fortress, Elovyn takes advantage of the clanging steps of the golem to whisper something privately to the druid. “I think you should know,” she says in hushed tones. “I believe Zellingar is hiding something. I don’t think he wishes me or any of us any harm, but… the Holy Fire. He says it is a sect devoted to the holy light of the sun. But the sign on his forehead – it is not a symbol of Arden. I have not heard of this Holy Fire, and if it were truly a faith of Light I surely would have known or read of it. I do not know what it represents, but it certainly is not a sign of my own god. Be careful.”
Haji Baba nods. “Thank you, Elovyn,” she says. “I suspected there was something dubious about him. I shall remain vigilant.”
*
Just as they are making their way back into the fortress, an ominous drumbeat strikes up, its steady Dwarven rhythm filling the cavern of Runor. Accompanying the drums is the unmistakable clomp of hundreds of hobnailed feet.
Looking around, they see movement around the gigantic hive structures of Ilthe Ba’Manza, too. Down the spiralling pathways that coil around the Illactites, and out across the surface of the Sunless Sea, headed straight towards the citadel of Runor, hundreds of Illithids teem.
Stricken by pustules and frothing at the tentacles, they swarm towards the cliffs that fall to the river separating the fortress from bowl of the Sunless Sea. And, spiderlike, they climb down and across to the rocky plinth upon which Runor stands. And they begin to ascend.
The Fellowship stand for a few unsettling moments, mouths agape. All except for Zimlok, who is face down on the courtyard floor, hammering the ground with his fists and wailing in despair.
* * *
What will become of our desperate heroes now?
What unlikely plan will they concoct, if indeed they make one at all?
Will they find a way off this rocky pinnacle of imminent death?
Or will Runor become their untimely tomb?
Find out in the next hair-raising episode of…
The Sword of Air!
Now, onward! Onward to the giddy heights of adventuring at Level Six!
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