[Spellcraft check1: Failed]
I didn’t wait to see what was going to happen and was already moving when the Face spat out an angry star of a fireball. The marble sized bit of fury hissed towards me as I dove behind the stone well; it missed me by inches and exploded against the wall, bathing everything in a twenty foot radius with searing scarlet flames that washed the walls with soot and hungrily sought my own flesh. I dodged and twisted through the scorching eddies and around the well, keeping some piece of inflammable stone between me and the fire at all times.
[Evasion check2: Success]
“I don’t want to hurt you!” screeched the Face, in complete contradiction to all evidence so far.
What are random encounters?
“I used to be a genie, you know! I have not forgotten how to grant Wishes. Come, and give me your deepest desire!”
The Face was floating this direction. “I promise, you will never notice what it costs you.”
I scooted around the well to keep the stone between me and the mask.
“Yeah?” I bantered back, still crouching down, trying to buy time while I thought of a plan. “And what’s that?”
“Only your soul, child.”
I risked popping my head up for a quick peek into the well, but there was neither magic nor life down there, and even with the goggles on I saw little and heard the sound of rushing water. Tiny blips of life sixty feet down, at the edge of the goggles’ range, might have been mussels or barnacles clinging to rocks, drinking dark seawater.
If I die here, no one’s ever even going to know. It was a sad lonely thought. Unless…
I reached up my sleeve and pulled out the illusi-frame, then, grimacing, bit down on my finger until it bled.
“I will have it from you, you know!” The crazed mask continued, while I started writing on the wall. “You can trade it to me, and get something out of this deal! Or I can suck it from your dying corpse, but I WILL meet my quota!”
Posing in front of my message, I turned the illusi-frame around and snapped a quick selfie, then examined the picture to make sure I had got it all:
KidnaPped by KeeN
in lair Now
Am probly deaD
pls help
I glanced away from the hole and towards the Face… or at least where the Face had been a moment ago. When it wasn’t screeching it was disturbingly quiet, without wingbeats or footsteps to give it away.
Well, I can be sneaky, too. Light on my feet, I darted over behind the mailbox. The inbox was full of advertisements, so I took one out at random and wrapped up the illusi-frame, tying it off with the twine from my pocket.
“Come here, child! You cannot hide from me!”
I used my still bleeding finger to quickly scrawl out Ramsey’s name, and then paused for a moment, trying to think of something to add, in case it was the last thing he ever got from me. ‘Thanks’ seemed inadequate, and ‘I really hope you get this’ was too long. Finally, feeling sentimental, I smeared blood on my lips and kissed a smooth spot on the paper, leaving a red stain in the shape of my lips. For luck.
Then I dropped it in the outbox and pressed the emerald set in a bezel on the front, and with a loud CLANK! and a whirr it was away.
“There you are!”
I twitched my head back and forth in a panic, searching for it, and about had a heart attack when I turned all the way around to find it less than a yard away from me, still staring at me with those mad, red pinpricks.
I scrabbled backwards, around the mailbox, noticing the fireball hadn’t yet built back up in the magic eddies, but this time it didn’t cast a spell at me, it simply flew, face first and screaming mouth open, as straight as a charging ram. It went through the mailbox like a house of cards, scattering advertisements and splinters in a paperstorm of chaos, and hit me mid chest, knocking the breath out of me and bouncing me back across the room like a kicked puppet.
[-6 Hit Points, Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 8/15]
I landed on the chest of collectables and went over backwards, quickly turning my impromptu reverse-somersault into cover as I gasped my interrupted breathing under control.
“No one will even be able to tell it’s gone!” The Face continued its sales pitch. “It will be our little secret! All I need is your signature…” the Face floated up and over for another ramming attack “…in blood.”
I rolled out of the way just as it tried to face-stomp me into the floor.
There was a piece of bookshelf not far from where I was laying. I got my feet under me and tumbled over to it, picking it up as I rolled to my feet. The Face screeched and came at me and I swung my improvised club, but the heavy piece of wood was unwieldy and the flying mask dodged my attack.
I jumped and tumbled again, using the collectables chest as cover once more, while the Face did an about-face and focused its eyes on me once again.
“You will take my offer!” it predicted. “Eventually! I have sold less, for more, than mercy to the dying!”
This time it didn’t chase me, and I noticed the swelling swirl of magic forming deep in its mouth. I held myself still, waiting… waiting… and this time, when the fire came, I was ready.
[Evasion check: Success]
I dodged again, dancing in the vortex of flame, while the fireball hit the collectables chest and detonated… and suddenly I was dodging not just flame, but also smoking splinters of maple, rare beetles which were surprisingly combustible, thaumaturgically important chunks of crystal, and vials of exotic essential oils. Half melted goblin beads pinged off the walls and the wreckage of a small fortune’s worth of collectables rained down around me. Crisped downy feathers settled like ash on the back of my neck, ancient gears rolled away in all directions, and a couple of thick glass scrying balls hit the stone floor and, against all expectations, bounced. I stared at them, bouncing, and the lunged forward and grabbed one before it could get away.
“…now that we’ve got that sorted out, who’s up for a Vodou Vespers?”
“Sounds good. Do you still have the sparq potion?”
“…still think I should have gotten the shield. I won the roll…”
“I have the potion and ten more just like it.”
“Good, we’ll need them all for Vod.”
“…Blaze I am going to beat you with this shield and feed you to the next trap if you don’t stop whining. We all know you hacked your dice to only roll sixes and nines…”
Keen’s voice. “I’m on timer for Vod.”
“What do you mean you’re on timer?”
“I didn’t talk to the witchdoctor and collect my reward from last time. I had to leave… unexpectedly. And you know the witchdoctor won’t send anyone back in the Vespers until three days after they’ve drank his stupid tonic.”
“Well that’s a newb mistake!”
“Watch your mouth, Tasha.” Keen snapped. “Or something’s going to happen to it...”
“I’m working on it!” I snarled back, trying not to let Voice’s panic get to me. Bludgeoning damage, I thought to myself. Something blunt…
I rolled to my feet amongst the debris, aimed, and threw the crystal ball. The Face saw it coming and tried to dodge, but I had hunted twitchier things out in the desert, and with far less balanced projectiles, than an egotistical demon mask with gravity issues. My scrying ball hit
it just below the cheekbone, shattering bone and smashing teeth.
My elation was short lived though, as Cynric’s Goggles showed little damage to the underlying magic structure. The shattered bone shone glowing red between the cracks, but did not dislodge, and the broken teeth stayed floating in the mismatched mouth.
I searched through the wreckage for second glass sphere, found it, aimed… and thought better of it.
“A hundred hit points, huh?” I looked back over my shoulder. There.
I bounced my Talarian Sandals on the floor and jumped backwards, landing amongst the piles of discarded clothing, and dropped the crystal ball. The Face stayed where it was and began the distinctive yawn that preceded a fireball. I rummaged around the clothing, searching… searching…
[Perception Check: Success]
…and pulled on the Gloves of the Ossian Puppetmaster. The Face of the Fiend opened its mouth, and I reached out with the gloves, which appeared in my doubled perception to project somehow beyond me and all the way over to the Face. I grabbed at empty air while the shadow projections grabbed the thin tendrils of magic that moved the demon mask, and I ripped the cursed thing apart like frayed cloth bag.
[Improvise Magic Device check: Success]
[Face Down the Fiend: Quest3 – COMPLETED]
Bits of bone and leather showered about the room, draping straps and buckles over a dresser while teeth bounced away on the stone floor.
“I thought you said Constitution4 was a measure of health! That thing was already dead.” I began kicking through the mess on the floor, looking for my daggers.
As if to highlight this point, the stone along the far wall took on an odd distortion and a black line began drawing itself in the shape of a doorway.
I kicked through the debris faster, finally found one of my daggers, and readied it to throw at whatever came through the Dimension Door forming on the wall.
I looked at the door, considered my dagger, and then, slowly, put it away. On the wall, the last black line connected itself; smoke and shadows filled the space between. I concentrated and flexed my hands inside the Ossian Gloves.
“Everything has a Con score, huh?” I muttered. “Then come on in, you bloodsucking excuse for a corpse.”
Keenfang stepped through the doorway.
I gave him exactly one second to survey the wreckage of the room, which is all it took for his expression to go from “cat with a crippled mouse” to “cat just dropped in the bathtub”, then reached out with the gloves, grasped his neck between the shadows of my thumb and still-bleeding digit, and snapped my fingers.
Keen’s head twitched to the side, but his unnaturally strong muscles fought the gloves, and prevailed.
He didn’t even try to articulate his fury, just reached out his own hand and spoke the same slippery words he had when we first came through the wall into the lair. Beneath me, the stone began to meld and flow, suddenly treacherous and unstable. I bounced down on my heels to jump away, but they only sunk through the liquid floor. It was like trying to jump out of quicksand. I threw myself flat and tried to crawl away, but as I did, Keen finished the incantation, and the flowing floor beneath me solidified again, leaving my feet trapped in it to the ankles.
Three quick strides and he was standing over me, then he reached down and pulled me back and up by my hair.
“I don’t know how you managed to escape, you diminutive little shit! But you’re going to pay for what you’ve done to my stuff.” With this he reached around with his free hand and sunk his claws into my face, right along the barely healed scar where he had cut me before.
[Spell effect: Enervation]
[Negative levels bestowed: 2]
[Current Level: 1 (of 4)]
[Withdrawn (2d6) maximum Hit Points: 7]
[Hit Points: 8/8]
No. I thought, reaching behind me to grab at Keen’s wrist. I will not become like you. I tore at his hands with a combination of the gloves and my own feeble strength, but I felt sickly, weak, barely a shadow of my former self.
Keenfang was also panting with excitement (presumably out of habit, since I didn’t think he needed to breathe), but then I felt the faint tremor of exhaustion run through his arms.
The vampire let go, and I sagged forward, catching myself on my elbows on the hard floor. I twisted around as best I could to keep an eye on him; Keen was digging through the collapsed bookshelf, looking for an unbroken mana potion.
Taking advantage of his distance, I pulled at my feet, twisting and squirming to try and get out of the enveloping stone.
[Escape Artist check: Partial success (- 3 penalty due to Enervation)]
My right foot—along with my bloodbound sandal—came free, nearly tearing my ankle off in the process and leaving a deep footprint in the stone where it had been. My left was still embedded to the ankle, held fast by the uncompromising floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Keenfang find an intact potion, flick the cork out with his thumb, and tilt his head back to drink. I reached out with the gloves again, aiming for his hands this time, trying to knock the potion out of his grip. This is it, I thought as I maneuvered the shadow projections against his thumbs and the tips of his fingers, aiming for the smaller bones. If he gets his mana back, he’ll kill me, or worse.
I made a flicking motion with my own hands, and elation filled me as I saw him fumble his grip, and the potion began to fall… only to be deftly caught by his free hand.
“Keep it up.” He suggested gleefully, drinking the potion in one long swallow. “Do you think I don’t know my own gear? Did you think those gloves would hurt me?”
No, I realized, looking around the room, searching for some last minute answer, some overlooked opportunity, some escape. There is no way out of here but death. And if Keen had his way, it would be an unnatural death of negative energy magic that drained my soul as well as the body, erasing all hope of… anything.
My eye fell on the stone well.
No way out... I looked back at Keen, advancing on me for the last time. “You’re right.” I told him, and had the momentary pleasure of seeing him perplexed for a comeback. “They won’t hurt you.”
I reached out again, seized my left foot in a shadow projection, and grasped my hand into a fist. Bones crunched and shattered, pain ran up my leg like lightning, and my mind nearly fled back into unconsciousness.
[-6 Hit Points, Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 2/8]
I dug the heel of my right foot down, putting everything I had left into the Talarian Sandal, and launched myself towards the well—along the ground, a quick handstand, then up to the lip where I perched for a moment, balanced on the edge.
“So long, sucker.”
I dropped into the rushing darkness. Better to go with my soul still intact than wait for it to be drained away. Sixty feet of
free fall, black vertigo, and at the bottom, not enough water to break my fall onto wave-washed rocks.
[-21 Hit Points, Falling (Bludgeoning) damage]
[Hit Points: -19/8]
[You have died]
Chapter Four
The pain was gone. My broken foot was gone. The colors of the world were gone. Everything was gone… I stood up.
I waved one hand experimentally in front of my face; I could see it, but I could also see through it, to my smashed up body floating in the shallow water above the rocks, awkwardly rocked back and forth by the passing waves.
The tide’s coming up.
Behind me there was something… my spirit hand was illuminated by a light that did not reach my body. I turned around to face a bright blankness, a brilliant tunnel to which mortal eyes could never adapt.
I turned away from the brilliant tunnel. The muted grey world was visible for about fifteen or twenty feet around my body, and then it faded into dark shadows, the way a moonlit clearing fades into the forest.
The Forest of the Night.
The thought popped unbidden into my head. I doubted it was the most accurate analogy, but given how I felt about trees, probably a good one. And then, equally unbidden: The Forest is not empty.
All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Not my actual neck, which was lying broken at my feet, but MY neck, the real one, the one that I could feel even if I could not touch it.
I agreed. I leaned forward and tried to pick up my body, but my spirit went through the inert matter without resistance, finding no solid grip. Above me, I vaguely heard Keen yelling something that might have been “Get back here you little imp! How dare you!”
For A Few Minutes More Page 4