by Lee Duckett
Fayne looked over the books, trying to find a journal, some record he might’ve made of what he’d done, but the most hidden, most trapped chest only contained keepsakes and tools to pull off whatever his plan had been. “I’m. . . I’m gonna keep the books, but put the rest back,” she told the group. Aria looked like she wanted to object, but glanced at Rurik and Badger, who both nodded in agreement, and held her tongue.
“I expected more,” the cleric said instead, waving around. “Magic items, gear, something.”
Badger shrugged, “Well, if something was going to happen, would you take your magic armor with you or leave it in your room?”
“But what happened?” she insisted. “Something killed them, and took the bodies or else you wouldn’t have remnants, they’d see their own bodies and be dispelled! Where did they go?”
“Maybe they were killed somewhere else?” Fayne offered.
Aria shook her head in negation, “No, if they left remnants they were killed here, and whatever did so didn’t leave any trace.”
“Maybe it did,” Badger offered, looking around the room. “But it’s been a while, maybe it faded. It doesn’t matter though, we have a way forward, and I, for one, am ready to get out of here. Right?” He looked around at the rest, who nodded in agreement.
Putting the keepsakes back, Fayne covered up the chest and Rurik led the party back into the hall, the dragonfire at the end of the room finally extinguished. As they walked into the smoldering chamber, the smoke rose from everything, escaping into hidden vents in the ceiling, anything that could burn, nothing but ash. The side rooms were in similar states, whatever their original purpose rendered unidentifiable by the flames. While some metal could be seen, it’d melted and bonded to the floor, walls, and what little stone furniture remained.
Moving forward, the far room’s furniture was burnt, leaving only a long, stone table, every surface covered in a layer of black soot. Following the imp’s dubious instructions, Fayne carefully brushed off the middle, finding a crystalline centerpiece. She cleaned the fist-sized protrusion off, and saw that the symbol of Andruft had been carved into, gleaming red in the light of Aria’s aureole.
“That. . . that’s not as valuable it looks, is it?” the cleric pouted.
Rurik moved next to Fayne, squinting at the stone. “Considerin’ it be a garnet? Nah, lass. Still worth takin’ don’t get me wrong, but it not be worth what the roper gave us. Maybe even, considerin’ the cut and the holy symbol.”
The scout ignored the others, cleaning around it to expose the concealed mechanism. Spinning it in the proper sequence, a barely audible click was heard throughout the chamber. Carefully moving to the wall, lightly dusting it off, she found tiny lines etched in the stone. She regarded it carefully. Not finding any traps, she began tapping the lines, varying her pattern.
Eventually she succeeded in tapping them in the proper sequence, and a rumble reverberated from below their feet, the wall grinding down and revealing a stairway. The smell of water with a hint of rot flooded the chamber, the ash on the floor blowing back in a small cloud.
Coughing, the party moved towards the doorway and gazed down into the stairwell, which curved down even further into the mountain, the only illumination that which the party provided. “Everyone ready?” Badger asked uncertainly. “Because I’d like to rest a little, maybe get my spells back, maybe have a good meal in case it’s my last?”
“It’s not going to be your last,” Aria half-reassured, half scolded. “But. . . maybe we should make sure we’re ready first. I’m running low on the power that Solus has granted me, and I think we might need it. Fayne? How do you close this?”
She pointed to a symbol carved on the wall down a few steps, “Press that. But it’ll close the door behind-” Before she finished, Badger had cast Mage Hand, the translucent purple construct of magic appearing and depressing the indicated switch. “Or we could do that,” she amended, the wall closing as the crystal centerpiece spun behind them, resetting itself.
“Should we go back to the overseer’s office?” Fayne asked, not sure of how to proceed.
Aria shook her head, “You couldn’t get rid of the all the traps in there, and you might have missed one.”
“Then the room with the mi-, the room with the false carpet?” Badger suggested, quickly catching himself at her glare.
Frowning, the cleric nodded, “That would be best. If there’s anything. . . left around here, it won’t want to go in there.”
“Why be that, lass?” Rurik requested. She just smiled, leading the party out, through the burned hall, the corridor of offices, and the half-buried hall. She strode through the great iron doorway into the church, dead ghouls everywhere; through the clergy’s quarters, an unnatural chill still frosting their breath even after the winter wights had been dead for hours; and stopped at the far doorway to the head priest’s room, looking smug. After taking a moment to be properly enigmatic, she opened the door and a warm breeze wafted out, bringing to mind summer days to those assembled.
Badger nodded to himself, the two non-magically inclined adventurers looking to him for an explanation, since the cleric apparently wasn’t going to give them one. “A ritual was performed here,” he explained, walking inside. The everburning torches in the room, which had previously been the orange-red of fire, now danced with golden flames. “They leave traces, though unless it’s a major working they tend to fade pretty quickly. The way this feels. . . is, is it. . . hallowed?” he asked, looking around, a small smile tugging at his lips.
Aria nodded, smiling openly now. “For a bit, yes. I don’t think it’ll last a week, but I can think of worse places to be cooped up in for a day.”
“A day!” Rurik objected, “Can’t ya just ask yer god real nice, get yer spells, and we get our behinds outta this place?”
“I could use a rest,” Fayne added, “But a whole day seems. . . excessive.”
“It has to be,” the cleric disagreed. “I could get more spells, but there’s a limit to how many I can regain through prayer, and if I tried to channel anymore of Solus’ power, I’d likely hurt myself, badly. As much as I’d like to see the sun soon, we need the rest more.”
“Tactically it makes more sense,” Badger argued. “We weren’t exactly quiet. If something down there heard us, it’ll be lying in wait. If we don’t show up until tomorrow, it’ll probably think we’re dead. If it didn’t hear us, then it doesn’t matter when we get there, we’ll still surprise it.”
Fayne made a face, “Eh, if it’s a dragon we’re not going to surprise it. Their senses are sharp. But-” she said quickly, heading off Aria,” I could still use a rest, especially after almost d-, after getting hurt.”
The censure on the aasimar’s face evaporated, leaving behind a caring smile, “Of course dear. I’m sure Rurik and Badger can salvage some beds from the other room so we can all be comfortable and secure together.”
“Oi!” the dwarf objected at being volunteered, “Why do we have’ta be the one’s gettin’ the beddin’!”
“Because you’re the strongest one here,” his mother said, still smiling.
Not able to disagree there, he instead pointed to his father, “And him?”
“He doesn’t mind, do you honey?” she asked her husband, fluttering her eyelashes.
The gnome just rolled his eyes, “Yes missus, whatever you say, missus,” he replied in an over the top submissive southern slave accent. “Come on Rurik, let’s go be manly while we ‘pick things up and put them down’” he said, accent shifting to an excessively Austrian one.
◆◆◆
By the time the men had finished moving in extra bedding, and a few extra chairs for good measure, Fayne and Aria had unpacked the party’s supplies, and had a small fire burning in the fireplace. Aria tended to a pot of stew made from ingredients purloined from the orcs that Fayne had stowed away in the Bag of Holding, while the elf tried to tidy up the ancient space.
Setting up a table, the stew
was served in short order. “Lass,” the dwarf asked, eyeing the dish. “I know that dwarven engineerin’ be super-” he paused at the elf’s glare, “the best, but I wouldn’t exactly trust the water.” She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, pointing at the suddenly apprehensive samurai who yelped as a small stream of water burst from her finger and sprayed her son. He waved at her and she shut off the spell. “Right! Magic. At least it be warm,” he muttered.
“Wait, you can make hot water on demand?” Fayne asked, disbelieving.
Aria shrugged, “My god is a sun god. All clerics can create water, it doesn’t even take the power of a first order spell. Why do you think I haven’t been complaining about not having showers?”
“But! You! You’ve had the ability to do that this entire time?” the elf demanded.
The cleric frowned, “I’m sorry. I thought with the entire forest elf thing you wouldn’t need-”
“Oh, Fayne didn’t but I would like that!” she insisted. “Or are you saying that Aria was using it that way before you showed up!”
Holding up a finger to object, the aasimar paused. “She did, but once every few days,” she admitted, nose crinkling in disgust. “Fine. I don’t even have to see what I’m using water on, so I could make a shower stall. Badger, Rurik, would you like that as well?”
Both men nodded. “I’m not scared of dirt. lassie,” Rurik added. “But just ‘cause dwarves are good at workin’ with the earth don’t mean I want to be covered in it all the time.”
Digging into the stew, it was good, and the others voiced their appreciation. “Thank you,” she smiled, before frowning slightly. “Though I found that I had to concentrate on it.”
“What be your cookin’ modifier?” the dwarf asked.
“My what?”
“You’re. . . open your character sheet, lassie,” he sighed. She did so and was about to point out that there was no cooking skill when he said, “Well there be your problem. Ya ain’t got no cookin’ skill, so ye be just usin’ yer wisdom bonus.” The others stared at him. “I had an entire bloody watch in a locked room, since me an’ the tree ‘ugger ain’t that big on coversatin’. I got bored and started figurin’ out the skills when I leveled up. Bloody sue me.”
Fayne’s eyes widened. “That’s what you were doing. I thought you were just being indecisive.
The samurai raised an eyebrow, “I be many things, lassie. Me father ain’t one of ‘em.”
Aria ignored that, asking, “So is that why I was having trouble?”
He just shrugged. “Prolly. You know how to cook, so ya could try to do it all correct like, since these things,” he waved at her character sheet, “only describe our characters, not us. I not be knowin’ how it all works, figurin’ all that out was more Max’s thing, but seein’ when somethin’ was off in the first place wasn’t that hard, even if Rurik might not’ve noticed.”
Badger had opened his own character sheet and was currently switching between tabs. “I’m not seeing ‘cook’ anywhere on this sheet,” he observed coolly. “Are you sure it’s a skill?”
Biting back his first response at his father questioning his intelligence, again, the dwarf pointed out the ‘craft’ skill, on the gnome’s sheet, of which there were two. One had the word ‘Alchemy’ written afterwards, the other had a blank space in which something could be written. “Craft, Profession, and Perform skills be needin’ to be specified, and ask fer it when ya go to put a point in ‘em. Otherwise a master swordsmith would also be a master alchemist, trapmaker, and shipwright. Fer someone who’s supposed ta be smart, I thought it would be obvious.”
Before the gnome could launch something back Aria interrupted, “So all my voice training is useless? The years I spent, just gone?”
Badger, distracted by his wife’s distress, suggested, “Well, why don’t you try?”
She hesitated, taking a drink of water to clear her throat, and began to sing. She stopped several times before she could really get started, unfamiliar with the voice she was using. Her voice wasn’t what it was, having a certain lightness that she’d lacked before. However, while the rest ate, she got a handle on it, starting to sing Ave Maria.
She stumbled over a few notes when Badger cast Ghost Sound, the same spell they’d used to distract the orcs what felt like a week ago, to create a phantom orchestra to accompany her. While it lacked the impact her song had, it enhanced it, and helped her gain confidence as she continued. Finishing, the sounds of the orchestra faded while her voice seemed to linger, brightening the chamber.
Fayne and Badger clapped, while Rurik gave her a single, grudging nod of appreciation. Looking at her character sheet, Aria just shook her head. “It still says I have no skill.”
Badger just rolled his eyes. “You had to concentrate more than usual, right?” she nodded. “Then Aria doesn’t have the skill, but Maggie does. That was beautiful, which from you was completely expected. Now, eat some of the lovely dinner you made for us.”
She smiled, and did so.
◆◆◆
After their dinner the party spread out, each taking a different book to read to pass the time. Aria claimed the books on Andruft, the dwarven god of magic and crafting, while her husband continued to try to figure out how to create a cloth which performed the auto-cleaning magic of Prestidigitation. Fayne still had her books on dragons, and Rurik took the book on speaking infernal, to Aria’s objection but no one’s surprise.
Taking watches, nothing happened, and in the ‘morning’ (according to Aria) the group was back to reading and waiting for noon, and for their cleric of Solus to get her full powers back. Fayne and Rurik were both getting a bit restless, the former finally asking, “It can’t be an older person thing, because you both are teenagers again, but aren’t you bored?”
Badger, who had been carefully sowing runes into a cloth, looked up. “No?” he asked. “Besides, it’s nice here. Right?” he asked his wife, who nodded, not looking up from her book.
Fayne looked around the room. “Not really,” she disagreed.
“Well, it’s nicer than the last time we were in here,” he said.
Fayne shared a look with Rurik, who stated, “It be the same bloody room wee man.”
The wizard frowned, looking between them, before letting out a long “oooooh.”
“Oh, what?” Fayne asked, when he didn’t say anything else.
“Well,” he started, motioning between himself and his wife, “It’s our alignments. We’re Lawful Good, while you’re Lawful Neutral.”
The dwarf crossed his arms. “So I’m honorable without bein’ a goody two-shoes. So what?”
However, the elf understood. “We’re standing on hallowed ground,” she commented, the gnome nodding. “We’d be feeling uncomfortable if we were evil, would we?”
“Just like Aria or I would be if we were on unhallowed ground,” the wizard agreed. “It’s like those cursed seeds we found in the last Lair. They bothered us, but to you they were just magic items. I’m not sure how but good and evil are tangible things here, not just concepts. We’re leaving soon, so you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried, wee man, just bored. How much longer be we waitin’?” he asked the cleric, who glanced upwards from her book, held up one finger, and half raised the other. “Ugh, and hour and a half? Fine.” He sat down with a huff, grabbing his book.
After noon came, and Aria prayed to her miniature sun, the party was securing their supplies and getting ready to leave when a pinging sound seemed to echo from every corner of the room. Rurik had his sword out immediately, katana alight and dwarven shortsword at the ready. Fayne hurriedly finished shoving her bedroll in the Bag of Holding before she grabbed her bow. Aria and Badger had their mace and quarterstaff out respectively, the latter’s free hand filling with eldritch flame.
Nothing happened.
They stared around, unsure, unwilling to lower their guard, but no new threats emerged. ~Everyone be hearin’ that, right?~ Rurik asked
over the connection they’d reset a few minutes previously.
~I think we all did,~ Fayne reassured. ~It sounded. . . electronic?~
~I’m not sure, maybe it,~ “Woah!” The wizard yelped as the sound came again, reverberating over their link, not heard by their ears, but by their minds. ~Do we, do we have voicemail or something? Mindmail? I don’t know of any magic which does this, but I’ve only got a general knowledge of it. Aria?~
The Cleric frowned, shaking her head and holstering her mace. Holding her hand out she called “Character Sheet Open!” Her display popped up, along with the orchestral score of her ‘level up’ music. As the party gathered behind her to read it, another window popped up. It stated:
You have reached level five!
Soul Intensity has reached
the minimum safe threshold!
Stand-by for Legacy Item
Activation!
“Legacy what?” she asked before doubling over in pain.
“Maggie!” Badger cried, moving to his wife’s side and helping to support her. Golden Radiance shone from behind her eyes, the brilliance spilling from her mouth. The eyes of the wooden symbol of her god around her neck, a stylized sun with a bald man’s face in the center, started to glow as well. She shuddered, but stayed standing with effort and her husband’s support, the light coming from the symbol of her god expanding, getting brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at, growing to encompass the entire disk, like a miniature sun on her neck, even the cord glowing.
Badger stood by, helpless to help the woman he loved, as she endured, the light slowly fading both from her and from her holy symbol. Blinking his eyes clear of the glare, he helped her take a seat on the bed, Rurik letting out a low whistle of amazement behind him. Looking back at the dwarf, the gnome followed his line of sight to Aria’s pendant. What was once finely crafted wood was now vibrant gold, the eyes set with yellow-orange diamonds that seemed to contain a radiance of their own.