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| From Here. |
Picking up almost precisely where Session 7 left off, in the wake of the execution of the slug the adventurers had received a strong urging to become prepared for sudden travel.
The abandoned boat of the hated dead slug had continued to drift upwards through the night as the adventurers slept, reaching the highest point it could go to a few scant hours before dawn. It hung there for only a few moments in the sky before the magics that held it there dissolved, and then the great ship fell to earth creating a great disaster when it collided with what was down below.
The Adventurers awoke in the early morning darkness confused by all the noise created by this, and the public reaction to it. They stumbled out into the predawn murk and trailed the scattered groups walking towards a gathered crowd, where all those gathered there gazed at the adventurers with obvious disdain and palpable disgust. A few mangled bodies could be seen, stacked near a great heap of rubble, a mess of stone and wood and sailcloth.
Gerald stepped up and began trying to pull rocks away, while the crowd started at him and murmured. He called out for them to help, even though he couldn't speak their language. Only a few would step up to aid him, and even then they kept a wide distance. The crowd stared as he exposed an arm beneath the wreckage, a very small one. A very young one.
Edoni kept his distance, fully conscious of the tension in the air. There were no outsiders left, save Dietrich and Gerald. He handed off his dogs to Gerald, hoping they might protect him, and then he and Dietrich hurried back towards the inn. Dietrich was shocks, irritated by the silent crowd who seemed most ungrateful for all they’d done, and was supremely irritated to find another crowd gathering outside their inn as he returned to it.
Gerald was suddenly confronted by a visibly furious man, flanked by several others. They wore no insignia of the military or guilds, they were commoners. The dogs growled and lunged as the man shouted at him, gesturing in a rage. Gerald pulled out a pistol, and leveled it towards him. The man backed down, and the crowd parted as Gerald turned to leave. Upon returning to the inn Gerald saw a crowd grown unruly, and as he entered the owner was pressing his companions to gather their things and leave: they were no longer welcome.
The abandoned boat of the hated dead slug had continued to drift upwards through the night as the adventurers slept, reaching the highest point it could go to a few scant hours before dawn. It hung there for only a few moments in the sky before the magics that held it there dissolved, and then the great ship fell to earth creating a great disaster when it collided with what was down below.
The Adventurers awoke in the early morning darkness confused by all the noise created by this, and the public reaction to it. They stumbled out into the predawn murk and trailed the scattered groups walking towards a gathered crowd, where all those gathered there gazed at the adventurers with obvious disdain and palpable disgust. A few mangled bodies could be seen, stacked near a great heap of rubble, a mess of stone and wood and sailcloth.
Gerald stepped up and began trying to pull rocks away, while the crowd started at him and murmured. He called out for them to help, even though he couldn't speak their language. Only a few would step up to aid him, and even then they kept a wide distance. The crowd stared as he exposed an arm beneath the wreckage, a very small one. A very young one.
Edoni kept his distance, fully conscious of the tension in the air. There were no outsiders left, save Dietrich and Gerald. He handed off his dogs to Gerald, hoping they might protect him, and then he and Dietrich hurried back towards the inn. Dietrich was shocks, irritated by the silent crowd who seemed most ungrateful for all they’d done, and was supremely irritated to find another crowd gathering outside their inn as he returned to it.
Gerald was suddenly confronted by a visibly furious man, flanked by several others. They wore no insignia of the military or guilds, they were commoners. The dogs growled and lunged as the man shouted at him, gesturing in a rage. Gerald pulled out a pistol, and leveled it towards him. The man backed down, and the crowd parted as Gerald turned to leave. Upon returning to the inn Gerald saw a crowd grown unruly, and as he entered the owner was pressing his companions to gather their things and leave: they were no longer welcome.
They proceeded to the barn to quickly load their things and be on their way, as the sounds outside became ever more foreboding. An imp was called forth by Dietrich to aid in this endeavor. It was a fully nude man only not even two feet tall, with the hairy horned head of a great goat atop the shoulders. It bleated to communicate during his period of servitude, and dutifully hid under a blanket to watch for intruders and thieves as instructed.
Though they worked as quickly as they could, they were soon interrupted by a group of soldiers who marched in with spears lowered as the sun finally rose. Just as they realized they could be in danger, but before they thought to retaliate, they noticed that the leader of these men was wearing a magnificent arm band in the image of a snake, which he pointed to as he approached them. He was with Odafin, he said, and they must trust him and come along and do as he said, and nothing else. They agreed to this, and then cloth sacks were pulled over their heads and ropes tied roughly around their arms.
With their wagon quickly loaded and towed behind them they were marched out past the jeers of the bloodthirsty crowd. A stinking rotten hunk of squash collided with Gerald's head, soaking him in a sour smelling juice and nauseating yellow pulp. He swore hell and vengeance on whoever had thrown it, should he ever find them. When the sacks were at last removed from their heads they were standing before Odafin, who as he was placing the arm-band back onto his own arm asked them terse and solemn. “Are you ready?” They said they were.
They were hidden under many heavy bags of grain, which were then covered with a blanket. They were told to be still, and totally silent as they left. They heard Khirima fade as they left it behind. They were up in the mountains, high above Khirima, before they were allowed to reveal themselves, and understand their surroundings. They approached the great waterfall, and went behind it. They were taken into a cave, down a hallway of rough wet stone. This stone became smooth deep within, and the walls glowed with strange markings. Some resembling the tiny creatures seen in water, others lines, others curves and dots. They were in a rounded chamber like the inside of a vase or bottle, with a wide hole in the center, a hole that angled downward like the side slope of a triangle into the darkness.
Odafin was there with them, with his most loyal guards. This is where the silver was taken, he said. It was thrown into that pit. This was what he had promised them, he had taken them to this place and he could do no more. He then left them, with their cart and their mules, standing in this most forbidden cave before a hole leading into unknown darkness. After some deliberation Dietrich leaped in first, then Edoni encouraged two of the mules to follow with encouragement from his hounds. Gerald sent the rest after with a discharge from his pistol, the great noise echoing through the chamber along with the mule brays and the clatter of their wagon as he slid down after them as well.
After some minutes spent sliding down each felt a distinct sensation, like hitting a heavy velvet curtain and continuing through, with an odd pressure in the ears and on the eyes. After several more minutes the severity of the angle decreased, and each then realized they were on a new kind of surface, it gripped them in a way that felt sticky without having any sort of slime, and they also realized that it moved, gradually and always towards some mysterious endpoint that could not be seen. They each lit candles in turn, revealing smooth walls like the chamber above as they walked towards each other. They gathered their scattered animals and possessions, and once together then spent hours sitting in this strange moving darkness, winding along an unknown path only eventually seeing a very distant point of light.
It was early evening when they emerged. They saw a vast jungle before them, and the rocky walls of what was surely the plateau for once behind them. It was hot, much hotter than it was outside. The air was thick with wetness and humidity, like putting one's face over a tea kettle after being in cool evening air. There were distant sounds that were sometimes familiar, other times not. Wails perhaps, roars.
They were in a wide, flat area, and the ground was very flat bare earth. There was a river nearby. Across that river was some great beast, like the one they saw inside the library. They approached it cautiously, but it took notice of them and fled into the jungle. The jungle itself was also permeated with a noxious, pinkish haze or mist. There was a stinging, acidic smell in the air.
They returned their attention to the ground around them, they were coins here and there, silver coins. A good amount, several hundred, but no vast fortune like what they knew had been given. It must have been taken, surely, but there were no tracks to be seen around them besides their own.
They explored further, and saw that the jungle around them was coated in a thick cloud of spiders webs, all populated by spiders larger than an outstretched hand. Some ate birds. Near the ground in one, thankfully far from any spiders, was found a piece of parchment. They pulled this down, and unfurled it. It was a map, like the map they had of the kingdom. This one was different though, as it had landmarks drawn on the usually blank plateau. These marks looked somewhat like an image of a skull, and it also showed that the river before them wound through most of the region. They thought they might use this to their advantage.
At the edge of the river Dietrich called forth for a demon, and the call was answered: out from the jungle there came a humming sound, before the creature emerged. Held aloft by six great legs like those of a grasshopper, a squid-like cranium with six identical and lovely muscled male arms around the circumference of it.
Under the control of Dietrich and bound to this reality until the completion of a defined task, Dietrich willed for it to construct for them a fine raft from the local vegetation. The creature silently accepted this command, and then crawled and clambered into and out of the jungle for the rest of that day building it, stripping bark, bending branches, and winding vine into string until a fine and sturdy raft appeared before them complete with stout poles for guidance and navigation. The creature walked into the thick vegetation once again when it had finished, this time disappearing from the world forever.They were in a wide, flat area, and the ground was very flat bare earth. There was a river nearby. Across that river was some great beast, like the one they saw inside the library. They approached it cautiously, but it took notice of them and fled into the jungle. The jungle itself was also permeated with a noxious, pinkish haze or mist. There was a stinging, acidic smell in the air.
They returned their attention to the ground around them, they were coins here and there, silver coins. A good amount, several hundred, but no vast fortune like what they knew had been given. It must have been taken, surely, but there were no tracks to be seen around them besides their own.
They explored further, and saw that the jungle around them was coated in a thick cloud of spiders webs, all populated by spiders larger than an outstretched hand. Some ate birds. Near the ground in one, thankfully far from any spiders, was found a piece of parchment. They pulled this down, and unfurled it. It was a map, like the map they had of the kingdom. This one was different though, as it had landmarks drawn on the usually blank plateau. These marks looked somewhat like an image of a skull, and it also showed that the river before them wound through most of the region. They thought they might use this to their advantage.
At the edge of the river Dietrich called forth for a demon, and the call was answered: out from the jungle there came a humming sound, before the creature emerged. Held aloft by six great legs like those of a grasshopper, a squid-like cranium with six identical and lovely muscled male arms around the circumference of it.
That next morning they departed on their infernally created raft, and began drifting lazily down the murky river ahead. In an area thick with overhead canopy Edoni was overcome by a searing pain, emanating from his neck, while Gerald and Dietrich saw a thick tube or tendril of some kind affix itself to his exposed neck. They in turn heard hissing as they were surrounded by their own snakes, which all hung down from the limbs of the trees above. A mule was felled in a single bite from one, frothing at the mouth and falling down dead while another brayed out in overwhelming pain, and Edoni felt his body began to be ravaged by poison.
Dietrich blasted on in twain with his pistol, and Gerald then unleashed a roaring belch of pink flame from deep within his throat, and it enveloped all those serpents around them, their burnt bodies falling like smoldering unwound rope into their raft. Once certain they were safe they stripped the dead mules of any provisions and kicked their poisoned bodies into the water.
Some hours later along a muddy bank was a rather large specimen of the beasts they saw along the lake near Khirima, a great crocodile. Beyond this threatening but mundane thing was something much stranger, and more intriguing: a great sculpture of a strange amorphous form posed seemingly triumphant atop a mound of dead and mangled human bodies. Atop the base of this sculpture were heaped even more bodies: the carcassess of various animals in a range of states of decay, once colorful birds, small mammals, primates, and reptiles. Old blood and viscera poured down the sides, staining it from top to bottom.
Taking an interest in this odd monument and wishing to investigate it further Gerald and Dietrich sought to remove the crocodile. They withdrew their respective firearms and blasted the obstructive lizard, both of their payloads landing true and punching past its armor of scales and causing it noticeable wounds.
These were not enough to end the great beast, and were quite enough to provoke it. With alarming speed it launched itself forward into the water, sending out a great splash and wake, then in the briefest second after rising up over the edge of the raft before Dietrich. Its’ great jaws were open wide as if to welcome him inside, each extending beyond him. It’s lower jaw could be seen positioned before his back and the upper jaw in front of his stomach in the instant before they snapped shut with a terrific force, snapping his spine like an old broomstick and tearing down through the muscular wall of his belly like a sheet of wet burlap, the two halves of it’s dental structure to come into contact once again with the various layers of Dietrich compressed between them.
The crocodile then lurched back and whipped its head skyward with a twist, fully separating the upper half of Dietrich from the lower. His legs and lower torso fell forward into the river with a splash while his upper half was flailed about gracelessly in the air as its innards spilled down and out to join the legs in that same current of dirty water.
With the lizards pale belly exposed Edoni then assaulted it with offensive magic: a malicious energy in the form of a pure white line like a rope of hot glass that emerged out from the depths of the jungle in a perfectly straight trajectory, puncturing the thick hide of the creature instantly and reducing its heart to wet ash before emerging out the underside of it, leaving a hole large enough to reach an arm through cleanly. The now lifeless body of the beast continued to drift backwards, propelled by inertia, and landed on the banks near the mysterious statue.
It is unknown how long Dietrich remained conscious beyond the moment of bisection, but he was indisputably dead upon his landing on the shore with his now dead assailant still clamped, albeit loosely, onto his upper half.
After a moment of shock Edoni and Gerald then quickly pushed the raft to shore and disembarked. They gathered up the wayward legs of Dietrich and brought them nearer to his body, which they removed from the crocodile's jaws. They then stripped those two halves of their former companion of all valuables as these dead portions no longer had any need for them.
After this had been attended to they then began sifting through the funereal heaps of animals on the plinth of the odd sculpture, and among the moldering scraps Edoni found an artifact that emanated a magic of some kind: An elephant's tusk, a small one, sharpened to a needle-like point and covered in delicate and mystical etchings. Affixed to, wound and draped on it, was the spinal cord of a snake.
As a means of testing the effects of this tool Edoni strode over to the body of Dietrich, and pressed the tip of it into his flesh and dragged it, causing some partially coagulated blood to spill out.
As this blood spilled Edoni felt a force begin to act upon him, at first very subtle but then unmistakeable: the barrel of his gun, the gunshot in his pouch, the tip of his spear, and even the coins he carried with him were being pushed away from the body of Dietrich as if being compelled to by an unseen hand.
He stepped away from this odd phenomenon, and pierced the flesh of the crocodile to see if it might be repeated. At first he felt nothing, and thought nothing had happened, until he saw that the dead lizard seemed to lie heavier on the damp ground it did the moment before he cut it. It began to press into the mud noticeably, and then seemed to sink as its increasing heaviness pressed it under the surface of the earth until it was covered, leaving only a sort of dent after it was finally gone. Now feeling a greater pull on their metals from the body of Dietrich, the two then returned to their raft and continued on down the winding river, their dead companion a new addition to the heaps around the statue.
Taking an interest in this odd monument and wishing to investigate it further Gerald and Dietrich sought to remove the crocodile. They withdrew their respective firearms and blasted the obstructive lizard, both of their payloads landing true and punching past its armor of scales and causing it noticeable wounds.
These were not enough to end the great beast, and were quite enough to provoke it. With alarming speed it launched itself forward into the water, sending out a great splash and wake, then in the briefest second after rising up over the edge of the raft before Dietrich. Its’ great jaws were open wide as if to welcome him inside, each extending beyond him. It’s lower jaw could be seen positioned before his back and the upper jaw in front of his stomach in the instant before they snapped shut with a terrific force, snapping his spine like an old broomstick and tearing down through the muscular wall of his belly like a sheet of wet burlap, the two halves of it’s dental structure to come into contact once again with the various layers of Dietrich compressed between them.
The crocodile then lurched back and whipped its head skyward with a twist, fully separating the upper half of Dietrich from the lower. His legs and lower torso fell forward into the river with a splash while his upper half was flailed about gracelessly in the air as its innards spilled down and out to join the legs in that same current of dirty water.
With the lizards pale belly exposed Edoni then assaulted it with offensive magic: a malicious energy in the form of a pure white line like a rope of hot glass that emerged out from the depths of the jungle in a perfectly straight trajectory, puncturing the thick hide of the creature instantly and reducing its heart to wet ash before emerging out the underside of it, leaving a hole large enough to reach an arm through cleanly. The now lifeless body of the beast continued to drift backwards, propelled by inertia, and landed on the banks near the mysterious statue.
It is unknown how long Dietrich remained conscious beyond the moment of bisection, but he was indisputably dead upon his landing on the shore with his now dead assailant still clamped, albeit loosely, onto his upper half.
After a moment of shock Edoni and Gerald then quickly pushed the raft to shore and disembarked. They gathered up the wayward legs of Dietrich and brought them nearer to his body, which they removed from the crocodile's jaws. They then stripped those two halves of their former companion of all valuables as these dead portions no longer had any need for them.
After this had been attended to they then began sifting through the funereal heaps of animals on the plinth of the odd sculpture, and among the moldering scraps Edoni found an artifact that emanated a magic of some kind: An elephant's tusk, a small one, sharpened to a needle-like point and covered in delicate and mystical etchings. Affixed to, wound and draped on it, was the spinal cord of a snake.
As a means of testing the effects of this tool Edoni strode over to the body of Dietrich, and pressed the tip of it into his flesh and dragged it, causing some partially coagulated blood to spill out.
As this blood spilled Edoni felt a force begin to act upon him, at first very subtle but then unmistakeable: the barrel of his gun, the gunshot in his pouch, the tip of his spear, and even the coins he carried with him were being pushed away from the body of Dietrich as if being compelled to by an unseen hand.
He stepped away from this odd phenomenon, and pierced the flesh of the crocodile to see if it might be repeated. At first he felt nothing, and thought nothing had happened, until he saw that the dead lizard seemed to lie heavier on the damp ground it did the moment before he cut it. It began to press into the mud noticeably, and then seemed to sink as its increasing heaviness pressed it under the surface of the earth until it was covered, leaving only a sort of dent after it was finally gone. Now feeling a greater pull on their metals from the body of Dietrich, the two then returned to their raft and continued on down the winding river, their dead companion a new addition to the heaps around the statue.
Mithra Katkar had long practiced the mystical arts, and had gained a modicum of skill. Through this practice he had learned to travel great distances in an instant, and perform other miraculous feats that defied the common boundaries and limitations of dimensional space for many others in the human world. Despite his confidence in his ability he was ultimately a student, not a master, and so was not immune to error. He was most grateful to have been carrying his pistol when a mistake in his sorcery had caused him to emerge not from the doorway he had intended to step forth from in Italy, but instead from a door-like arrangement of branches in a hot and balmy jungle much unlike the landscapes he had become accustomed to in the northern regions of India. This place was filled with unfamiliar noises and even an odd and offensive smell that burned his nostrils.
He was not comforted by recognizing the bulky form of an aggressive hippo lurking along the banks on the other side of the river he was near, but was quite pleased to notice a pair of men quickly landing a simple raft on the shore nearby seemingly (and wisely) avoiding the hippo.
Gerald and Edoni were quite relieved to discover that this unexpected interloper could speak to them in English, and this made explaining where precisely he had found himself much easier. He realized he was quite remarkably far from Italy, and would be in need of a great deal of money where he ever to get himself there, or back home, and so agreed to join Gerald and Edoni on their quest for silver. United by this common goal, the three of them then looked towards the yawning maw of the hippo, their common obstacle, its beady eyes fixated on them as it paced the opposite bank of the river.
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