“I don’t care about heroes, and I don’t have a frail ego,” Jandar said, crossing his arms in defiance.
Lexon walked up to him. “Why can’t you just admit you’re glad to see me?”
Jandar countered his grin with a glower. “Why do you smell like piss?”
Lexon spun around and stalked toward the center of camp. “I need some food in me belly and something to drink other than warm water before I begin my tale of selfless heroism.”
Jandar leaned close to Nyx. “Can you tell how many points he has in luck?”
Nyx shook her head. “No. NPCs don’t have character sheets like we do.”
“I’m an NPC and I have a character sheet.”
“You’re…different.”
Jandar grinned down at her. “It’s all right, you can say special. I won’t let it go to my head.”
Nyx rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I can’t give you a number, but I can tell you it’s his highest attribute by a good measure.”
“Hm, I might have to start putting more points into luck.”
“You and me both.”
Lexon passed the nearly empty wineskin to Nyx. “I was staring the nasty bugger in its glimmering black eyes and knew for sure I was about to become the second course.”
Nyx took a swig from the skin and passed it to Jandar. “How’d you get away?”
Lexon swung his harp around on its strap and plucked a string. “While the idea of music taming the savage beast is greatly exaggerated, it turns out it can convince them that there’s better and more plentiful eatins just over the hill.”
Nyx threw her head back and laughed. “That’s why we heard so many screams! How many did they kill?”
Lexon shrugged. “Can’t know for sure. As soon as the critters was occupied, I hotfooted it out of there. Been walking ever since. Was startin’ to thing I’d never find you. Got lucky that I could see the faint glow of your fire from the hilltop I sat on.”
Saefa clapped him on the shoulder. “You did a marvelous thing, my friend.”
Nyx nodded. “Luring them away with an illusion was brave and brilliant.”
Lexon dipped his head. “Like I said before, perception is everything.”
“Not quite everything,” Jandar said. “You did well, but we’re going to need more than illusions and music in Lahar if even half the tales are true. Still, I’ll be glad to have you with us.”
Lexon elbowed Nyx. “Might be music can tame the savage beast. Maybe they meant the sour beast.”
Jandar narrowed his eyes at the bard. “You still smell like piss.”
There were only five desert striders left in the caravan, so Nyx and Lexon doubled up again to leave them with two outriders. It would take the refugees another full day to reach the extinct volcano, but the three of them on their mounts made the trip in three hours. They guided the striders into the cleft that served as the only easy passage to whatever was left of the once proud city.
The path angled upward and deposited them several hundred feet above the sea. The mountainous volcano loomed another two thousand over their heads like a titan keeping watch on the ruins stretched out below.
It appeared as though a large section of the mountainside had collapsed and shoved most of the city into the sea. Fluted columns jutted up out of the harbor like the rib bones of a colossal whale along with other stones; some quarried others the solidified remains of boiling magma.
From their vantage point, they saw only a single structure that lay largely intact. A solitary, stone building listed slightly atop a hillock, the smooth stone around it looking like black water split by a boulder in the middle of a flowing river.
“Does anyone see anything that looks like trouble?” Jandar asked.
His companions shook their heads, and Nyx said, “Just that building near the center. I don’t know if it’s dangerous, but it does give me the creeps.”
Jandar nodded. “Aye, and that’s where we’re going.”
He tried to spur his mount down the hill, but it refused to go any closer. The other two lizards were equally recalcitrant.
“Looks like we walk from here,” Jandar said as he slid from the saddle.
Lexon looked from the ruins to the desert striders. “Maybe I should stay back here and watch the lizards so they don’t run off.”
“They will stay where I tell them,” Saefa replied.
“What if there’s more of those big scorpions around?”
Jandar gave him a shove toward the city. “I imagine you’ll piss yourself again.”
“It ain’t like I just up and pissed meself,” Lexon said over his shoulder. “I just happened to be taking a piss when those nasty buggers jumped out and I got some on me when I turned to fight them. OK, that’s a lie. I was actually climbing a rock to get away, but the cause and effect are the same.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“It was! Here, I can prove it.” Lexon began tugging at his laces. “I even scratched it on the stone while I was climbing.”
Nyx twirled a dagger between her fingers. “If you don’t want to lose it, I suggest you keep it in your pants.”
“Fine! I know the truth,” Lexon snapped as he tightened the laces back up.
Jandar grinned at him. “Are you going to work your scratched prick into your song?”
“Stories don’t need to be recited verbatim. Certain flourishes require a bit of dramatization and the occasional exclusion.”
Gravel crunched beneath their feet, and their heavy tread crushed pumice into dust. Despite the almost continuous sheet of stone, life had returned to this dead place. Grass and flowers sprang from cracks in the ground or sank roots into the thin layer of soil laid down by more than a century of dust. Farther up the mountain, trees and vegetation grew in abundance, at least on the seaward side.
Staring up at it, Jandar wondered how big the mountain had been before exploding. The crater was vast with high, steep-sided walls creating a broken ring around a mountaintop valley two miles wide, making it twice as wide as it was tall.
A creek not quite wide or deep enough to be called a river cut a winding path down the slope until emptying into the sea. If it were not for the evident violent destruction and the shadows creeping across the ground that seemed a little too deep and menacing, it would be a beautiful place.
They drew closer to the intact building and heard someone singing a song from inside. The wood door and shutters had long since decayed, and the cheery voice issued forth without impediment. Wary of danger, Jandar and the others drew their weapons and crept toward the open doorway.
Jandar proceeded first, his buckler held before him and a hammer gripped in each hand. A stout man with an enormous, ruddy mustache that curled at the tips stood behind a teak bar, wiping at its surface with a rag. It was a normal scene wholly out of place. Not only was Lahar supposed to be abandoned, the man lacked just enough solidity for Jandar to see through him.
The fellow glanced up and saw Jandar as he crossed the threshold. “Well, hello there, friends!” the man said, the curled tips of his mustache bending upward with his wide smile. “I say, business is certainly picking up. Welcome, and have a drink on the house.”
The bartender lined up five glasses, poured a golden liquid into each of them, and took one for himself. He saw his guests still huddled in the doorway as he plunked the empty glass back onto the counter.
He waved them forward. “Come in, come in. No need to be afraid. It’ll be hours before the others come out.”
They all relaxed their postures just a bit as they crept deeper into the tavern. There were several tables, chairs, and stools inside, all aged and a bit charred but otherwise intact.
“You spoke of others?” Jandar asked, still gripping his hammers but letting them drop to his sides.
“Oh yes, poor, angry, forgotten souls.”
“They aren’t here now?”
“No, no. They won’t come out until the sun sets.” The bartender leaned forward, his j
ovial face becoming serious. “You don’t want to be here after the sun goes down. As I said, they’re an angry lot.” His affable smile returned. “But they aren’t here now, so drink up and sit a spell. I’d love to hear some news of the goings on outside our little ruin.”
Lexon shouldered past Jandar and rushed the bar. “Finally, a proper drink. Those Caprians and their prohibition on spirits, no offense, is a crime against man.”
“Lexon, don’t—!” Jandar shouted at the bard, but Lexon was already reaching for the drink and would not be deterred.
His hand passed through the glass and the drink it contained. “Oh, now that ain’t right on so many levels,” he moaned and licked his lips as he repeatedly failed to grasp the drink.
The bartender looked down with a sorrowful expression equal to Lexon’s. “Sorry about that. I haven’t had the good stuff for a great long while.”
Jandar moved closer, gaining certainty that the ghost meant them no harm. “Who are you?”
The man’s bushy red eyebrows shot up. “Forgive me! I’m so unaccustomed to patrons that I’ve forgotten my manners. My name is Nestor McArdle, owner and proprietor of this here tavern and three term mayor of Lahar.”
“Well met. I’m Jandar; this is Nyx, Saefa, and Lexon. How long have you been here, Nestor?”
Nestor’s eyes rolled in a full circuit inside their sockets. “Hard to say. How long ago did the mountain explode?”
All eyes turned to Saefa who said, “One hundred seventeen years ago.”
Nestor furrowed his brow as he did the math in his head. “Then that’d be about a hundred and thirty-five years give or take.”
“And you’ve been tending this bar ever since?” Jandar asked.
“Oh, no, this is a recent development. Until a couple of days ago, I was like the others, rising when the sun set and moaning my angst into the night.”
“What happened to change that?”
Nestor shrugged. “No idea. One day, a fellow came in much like yourselves, I appeared behind my bar, saw the glorious light of day for the first time in over a century, and was back to my old self…mostly.”
“This man, he didn’t tell you or give you any answers as to your return?” Jandar asked.
“Nope. Just said I should be expecting some company in a couple of days and that I should help you out as best I can. Then he left.”
Jandar felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. “Did he tell you his name?”
Nestor tapped on the side of his head with a finger. “I believe he did. What was the name he said? Sorry, my mind isn’t what it used to be. Ah! It was Sarah…Lyn? Sarah-Lyn? That’s an odd name for fellow.”
“Was it perhaps Seraphim?”
Nestor jabbed a finger at Jandar. “That’s the one, Seraphim!”
“You know him?” Nyx asked, reading Jandar’s expression.
“That’s the name Edison gave me the first time we met.” Jandar shook his head in disgust. “What is he playing at now?”
Nyx asked, “Nestor, did the man tell you how you were supposed to help us?”
Nestor shook his head. “No. All he said was that I should ask you to help put the tortured souls of this place to rest.”
You have been given the quest Laid to Rest. Bring peace to the thousands of restless spirits haunting Lahar so that they may move on. Reward: 5,000 XP, a suitable location for a settlement, and a safe home for the refugees. Do you accept the quest, Yes or No?
Nyx accepted the quest without hesitation, but she could tell by the expression on Jandar’s face he was weighing his decision. “What’s the matter?”
Jandar grimaced. “Edison is the matter. He’s manipulating me again, or at least trying to. I told him once already I would not be his puppet, but here he is pulling at my strings.”
“Maybe he’s just trying to help. We need this place to set up a settlement and keep Saefa’s people safe. In order to do that, we have to take the quest, unless you want to abandon it and the people we’re trying to save.”
Jandar’s face darkened and he tightened his grip on his hammer hafts until his knuckles turned white.
Lexon backed away. “Look out, that’s the look he gets when he’s about to start smashing things.”
“I’m not going to smash anything!” he snapped. “Fine, we’ll do the damn quest. Nestor, did Seraphim tell you how we’re supposed to lay the ghosts to rest?”
The bartender shook his head. “Not a word.”
“Great.”
“But if I were to hazard a guess as to why they’re restless, I’d say it’s on account of them all having been murdered.”
“Murdered?” Nyx asked, her eyebrows shooting toward the top of her head.
“Well, might be murdered isn’t the right word. Does it have to be intentional to be called murder?”
“I thought everyone died because of the eruption,” Nyx said.
Nestor bobbed his head as he wiped out a ghostly tankard. “Aye, we did, but it wasn’t a natural occurrence. That volcano had been quiet for as long as recorded history. Not more than a shiver for hundreds of years.”
“You think someone made it erupt?”
“Oh, I know he did. Everyone knows he did, and they aren’t happy about it one bit.”
“He who?” Jandar asked.
“An odd fellow named Halifarn. He arrived in the city about six years before it blew its top, or side to be more accurate. He was some kind of wizard obsessed with earth magic. He said the mountain was a nexus of earth energy.”
“A geomancer,” Nyx said with a nod.
“Now, I’m not an expert in the arcane or spiritualism, but I’ve heard some things in my days running this bar and the city. My guess is Halifarn fiddled with power he couldn’t control and blew the hell out of everything. Fellows who play with powers like that don’t always die when or how they’re supposed to. It might be he’s still in there in one form or another, and the people he killed aren’t going to go anywhere as long as he is.”
Nyx bobbed her head. “That makes sense. If he’s also a shade or somehow still alive, killing him once and for all is probably the only way to lay this many spirits to rest. Nestor, do you know how we might be able to reach him?”
“Aye. There’s a cave partway up the slope to the crater. I’ll warn you, there’s more than just him in those caves. The shades there aren’t limited to the nighttime hours. Halifarn isn’t one to be taken lightly either. He might have been a bit mad, but he had enough power to ensure no one bothered him.”
“And possibly live to the ripe old age of a century and a half,” Jandar added.
Lexon raised a finger into the air. “I must state that none of my vast skills are suited to dealing with shades, ghosts, spirits, or most anything incapable of appreciating music.”
“You’re going,” Jandar snarled before Lexon could try to bow out of another quest.
Lexon put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Because every group needs a hero.”
“No, we need a good luck charm,” Jandar replied.
“That too. Me mum always said having me around was like stepping in dog shit; I brought good luck, but I was a foul little bugger always under foot.”
“I imagine it also had something to do with your smell,” Jandar rumbled.
Lexon lifted an arm, sniffed at his armpit, and winced. “Don’t go thinking you smell like a basket of daisies neither. I’ve been blown in the face with the devil’s rusty bugle by a pack of simians that smelled better than you.”
Jandar screwed up his face. “What is a devil’s rusty bugle?”
“That’s when some blokes hold you down on a table or bench and the rest of them bare-ass fart in your face.”
Nyx jumped between them as Jandar stepped toward the bard. “Let’s just agree you both smell like a simian’s ass and get going. We’ve got only a few hours of daylight left, and I don’t want to be here when the shadow hordes come out to play.”
Jandar spared Lexon a threatening glowe
r before picking a path up the steep slope and leading the way.
Saefa dropped back to walk next to Lexon. “This actually happened to you?”
Lexon shrugged. “Some critical reviews are more blistering than others, but that’s the only one what gave me a double case of pink eye.”
Saefa laughed heartily. “You have led an interesting life, my friend.”
“If you believe what Jandar says is true then I ain’t lived a life hardly at all until he infected me with his mortality disease,” Lexon scoffed.
The Caprian grew serious. “What do you mean? What mortality disease?”
“You know, the one responsible for closing the borders and the king sending soldiers to kill the infected.”
“Are you saying Jandar is responsible?”
Lexon bit his lip and looked at the ground. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it.”
Saefa grabbed Lexon by the arm and dragged him to a stop. “If Jandar is infected with a disease, and he’s spreading it to others, it is important that we know about it.”
“I don’t think he spread it to you. You must have gotten it when the khan and his adventurers came through your village conscripting men, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to break from your script and come to Crag Cross.”
“Break my script? What script? What is this madness of which you speak?”
Lexon cast his gaze up the hill, but Jandar and Nyx had not noticed their exchange. “I’m really not supposed to talk about it.” He shook his head. “As you said, it’s just some madness the blacksmith was babbling about. I hear forge fumes can affect a person’s brains.”
Saefa stared into Lexon’s nervous eyes, his grip tightening on the bard’s arm until he tossed it aside and resumed marching up the hill after the others. He would look for answers later, when his people were safe.
They found a cave leading into the mountain after trekking up the rocky slope for nearly an hour. They were still well below the crater. The smooth bed of stone was likely the primary source of magma that had run down the mountain and into the harbor. Jandar could not fathom how anyone could have survived at the epicenter of such destructive forces, but then, they were probably not dealing with a living being.
Chaos Unchained- The Mad Smith Page 32