The adventurers thought to rest for several days, to recover from their sojourn in the lands of Vilnid. They also used this time to make preparations for their further journeys. In particular, Dietrich sought out a stone carver in the Trade Square. The one he found was called Saro. He wore a bold blue cloth around his waist, and seemed contemptuous of religion. He was somewhat hostile, and he commented on Dietrich's facial scars with amusement. Saro had these too, but claimed he no longer had any use for superstitions. After being offered a handsome sum for his labors he told Dietrich to return in one week's time for what he had commissioned: a dragonfly carved in black stone. He did not share this with Saro, but Dietrich had commissioned this object as an accessory for use in his occult rituals.
Meanwhile, Gerald and Edoni both pored over a charred text retrieved from that French sorcerer in the jungle. Each was eventually able to decipher it from the original Medieval Spanish into a more intelligible vocabulary, and found that it was indeed a spell book, and they copied what they found in it into their own respective archives. It described a spell called Quickening and another called Bind, but the third one had been lost with the burnt pages.
Meanwhile, Gerald and Edoni both pored over a charred text retrieved from that French sorcerer in the jungle. Each was eventually able to decipher it from the original Medieval Spanish into a more intelligible vocabulary, and found that it was indeed a spell book, and they copied what they found in it into their own respective archives. It described a spell called Quickening and another called Bind, but the third one had been lost with the burnt pages.
Dietrich visited the Edo temple once again, the place where his face had been heavily scarred. Accompanied by the others he gave the Dibia, or priest, there that same old and partially burnt spell book, having no further use for it after copying the spells from it himself and also hoping also for another blessing or reward. The Dibia thanked them for bringing the wicked thing, and that he would finish burning it in due time and remove its evil from the world once and for all. He said the gods were surely smiling upon Dietrich and his men, true champions of the faith, when Dietrich asked about any tangible rewards for doing this.
Dissatisfied with this entirely, he asked if there was any more work he might do for them, any tasks he might take care of. The Dibia thought about this, then brought out an elder. This elder told them there was a good Edo woman who was in great danger: Her husband had recently died. He was an official in the military, and was not Edo. There was a faction that blamed her for his death, thinking she had murdered him, and wanted to see her killed as retribution for this. All was not lost though, if she could be delivered to her awaiting family, some miles away, they could take her to safety. The difficulty in this was that there were assassins pursuing her, sent by that military faction. If they were to assist with this task they would be rewarded with another boon. Dietrich remarked that this could not possibly involve more scarring, but the elder showed him a dense patterns of scars that covered his chest and demonstrated that anything might be possible. Despite being unsure of their reward they nonetheless agreed to help this woman, and were intending to come back in the near future to retrieve her.
Unfortunately they were pressed into taking her much sooner. "The assassins will surely search for her here, and they could arrive at any moment!" insisted the elder Diabia "You must take her now!". He then brought her out, and she was named Ofega, and she thanked them profusely as they brought her back to the Jackal. Dietrich asked the proprietor to discretely provide her with food and to keep her existence very secret, hinting that the reasons for her being there were lascivious ones that would have made her husband quite angry. The owner was amused by this, and also persuaded by the ample payment from Dietrich, and so agreed to do this. Considering Ofega now at least relatively safe they proceeded towards the Living Library, led by Adzua.
Unfortunately they were pressed into taking her much sooner. "The assassins will surely search for her here, and they could arrive at any moment!" insisted the elder Diabia "You must take her now!". He then brought her out, and she was named Ofega, and she thanked them profusely as they brought her back to the Jackal. Dietrich asked the proprietor to discretely provide her with food and to keep her existence very secret, hinting that the reasons for her being there were lascivious ones that would have made her husband quite angry. The owner was amused by this, and also persuaded by the ample payment from Dietrich, and so agreed to do this. Considering Ofega now at least relatively safe they proceeded towards the Living Library, led by Adzua.
They went into the Holy Square and walked past the gardens, temples, and the houses of the clerics until they reached an empty area with little more than a few hardly visited shrines at the periphery. The Living Library was there. A large, circular building. It was a ruddy red color, and covered in intricate and meandering carved patterns. It seemed to be only one story high, and had just one narrow doorway inside it. With Adzua waiting for them outside the three of them entered. There was a dim light inside, of unexplained origin, and the doorway lead one into a passage, narrow and with a low-ceiling, that went to both the left and right and turned a corner. These two paths then lead into each other, and turned towards a chamber. This chamber had a much higher ceiling, it went so high up it became obscured in darkness. Our from this darkness there was a golden chain that trailed down, and what it was attached to was obscured by the barrier in front of them. There was a sort of rural, animal-like smell in the air mixed with clay and dryness.
Edoni went to the left side of this barrier, while Dietrich and Gerald went towards the right. They each peered around the edge of it, and saw that the chamber they were in was quite large; At least one hundred paces across from where they stood. The wall opposite them was scalloped, like a clam shell. The barrier they looked around as a sort of shelf, on which there sat a collection of scrolls. In the center of this room was a ridge of stone encircling a smaller area, filled with straw. On this straw was a massive form, the great guardian Adzua had mentioned to them. It was facing away from them, laying in the circle perhaps, and they saw only this one side of it. It was large, and covered in mottled brown feathers, which became white and striped towards the tail. It seemed to be asleep. The chain draped down from the impossible ceiling lead to it.
While Dietrich was concerned that it might be a cockatrice or other sort of eldritch creature Edoni simply shouted out "Hello, guardian!", or something to that effect. His voice echoed off of the back walls, but slapped back at them very greatly amplified. The guardian then jolted and rose up; it turned to face the source of noise. It was a twenty foot long bipedal lizard, with small vestigial wings along its' arms and wicked sickle like claws for its feet. It whipped its tail and the unleashed a hissing, rooster-like roar. With startling speed it began charging towards Edoni.
Before it was able to reach Edoni, it was gouged with an undeviating line of colorless light called forth by his magic, but the injury was not enough to stop the beast or even slow it significantly. It fell upon Edoni and gored him with its great claws; he collapsed to the cool hard floor unconscious and on the brink of death from this grievous injury.
Dietrich did not hesitate to unleash his own sorcery on the vile lizard; a series of razor-like fragments of materialized shadow appeared and then sliced along its flanks, causing it to shriek and panic as blood flowed out over scales and feathers. It scampered back towards its circle of straw, and Gerald then belched out the killing blow: a cloud of pinkish flame rose up from his throat and erupted from his mouth, this struck the monster and enveloped it in that same garish fire. It lashed about in agony only briefly before it at last fell dying into the straw, which ignited as well. This created a great funeral pyre of sorts, with the reeking odor of burning feathers and the faintest aroma of a roasting hen filling the air. Gerald pondered the culinary value of such a beast, and thought he might return to that subject later.
They then attended to Edoni until he recovered consciousness, and then investigated the collection of scrolls. They slowly opened them, and out of these emerged voices! One scrolls voice spoke in a Medieval Spanish, and told of the practices of the Floral Mystics, who combined astrological practices with herbal ones. There was another which droned on in medieval Latin, telling a life story in the first person. In the old high German yet another spoke of Bavarian architecture in regards to magical hermitage, and in an ancient French the proper construction of a magical circle was described. In particular, another described the creation of a Salve of Invulnerability. This was all quite fascinating, but this investigation was nearly cut short by a strange effect no doubt put in place by the lost Conjurers: whenever they spoke as the scrolls were opened their own words were flung at any listeners as a violent force, and Gerald was almost struck down by Dietrich's commentary. To avoid trouble from this they sent Adzua to acquire a simple cart, and when he returned they loaded up these scrolls. Before they left Gerald cut off a few hunks of roasted meat off of the monster, and Dietrich examined the area around the burnt circle. He found a small triangular object, made of gold. He recalled the stories of a mystical key kept within the library, and took it with him. As they wandered back towards their inn Gerald shared the meat with Adzua. While it was not perfectly cooked, and somewhat bland in taste, it still functioned as a fine snack. Upon returning to the Regal Elephant they dismissed Adzua, and thanked him for his services.
Ofega was safe, thankfully, despite their having left her unattended. She was quite upset about still being in the city. The next morning they were stocked up with rations and on their way. Since they were headed east they chartered a boat across the lake, to better evade any assassins and avoid some time in the jungle. After this the journey became much more difficult, as neither Dietrich, nor Edoni, nor Gerald had any significant skill in terms of survival skills or wilderness navigation. They wore themselves ragged hacking though the thickest vegetation, stumbled around lost in the savanna, and lost several days to necessary rest and recovery at almost every turn. They were soon running out of food, and not nearly close enough to their destination to not have to contemplate starvation during watch, once they made camp.
Dietrich was on duty when the commotion began, just an hour or so before dawn. A growl, a scream from an injured animal, and chaos between two tents as some cat-like thing tore apart one of the mules. Dietrich approached, drew his flintlock, and unleashed a shot that grazed across the side of his long-suffering pack goat instead of the intended target.
Edoni and Gerald were both awakened by this cacophony, and exited their tents. Edoni had in his hand the Wand of Atrocity, stolen from the hallucinating frog-rider Hakana in the land of Vilnid. He thought he might discover the effects of this thing upon those he used it upon, by striking the feral cat. Alas, this would not be: Gerald had gone around his tent, and behind it and just beyond the commotion transformed himself with the spell of Bloodlust.
His teeth lengthened and now had sharpened points, while his fingers now ended in shorter but very sharp claws. Overcome with irrational rages and a predatory intuition he leaped onto the unsuspecting leopard and chewed it's throat out while shredding its torso to ribbons, as the goat pulled itself free and ran off into the darkness. The Gerald-thing then pounced onto the other mule, and ripped into its body without mercy, soaking his clothing with blood and viscera. Edoni and Dietrich both began to try and Bind the Gerald-thing using their newly found spells, and were at last able to restrain him with unseen implements just as he had finished slaughtering their other mule, before he would have turned on them. These chains held him until his Bloodlust waned, while Dietrich wandered off in the early dawn to recover his goat, which was lying down beneath a tree in shock. Once returned to civility Gerald roasted up their fallen mules on the campfire, providing them with enough sustenance to reach the rendezvous point and avoid starvation. Ofega looked upon Geralds blood-soaked visage and was horrified, and so stayed in her tent.
She left them quickly when they reached the rendezvous point, and her family gave them a token to indicate their success and then left quickly, as they had seen bad omens in this area. The Adventurers were ultimately unsure of if she had in fact murdered her husband or not, but upon seeing the bad omens Ofegas' family spoke of were too distracted to remark. The massive golden body of a lion lay dead in the savanna. It had been impaled with no less than 16 swords, and one silver spear of excellent craftsmanship. Edoni took the spear for himself, and Dietrich realized the beast had been poisoned: there was foam around its mouth. To Edoni this all resembled evidence of a kind of Summoning. It dawned on them all that this was near where the necromancer they had killed, back in the jungle, had marked a map of his own. They went north, towards that marking.
As they walked towards the foothills near the base of the plateau Dietrich tripped on the unusually loose ground, and injured his leg. They hiked upwards, until they found themselves looking down onto a clearing below. In this clearing was a circle of 17 figures seemingly in prayer, all dressed in filthy rags. Beyond them was a strange lozenge, a large metallic object partially buried in the ground. Beyond that a lone figure could be seen near the crest of the ridge of the plateau itself. They circumnavigated the lower area, with the lozenge and the circle, and approached the figure. The figure saw them, and it waved to them, and it approached.
It was a woman, middle aged, and dressed in a heavy cloak. She was English, much to Gerald's delight. Her name was Rosalind. She was eccentric, and enthusiastic. She looked the Adventurers over, and she questioned them and their motives. Were they Magic-Users? Did they seek the temple? A bit crazed, she admitted that she was a Magic-User, and she spoke of a great spell to be unleashed by her disciples in the valley below, one that would dissolve this thing beyond them: the barrier that blocked the Temple and all its' riches. Would she join them? She had no money, but once they had access to the Temple beyond they would be rich beyond any other riches!
Dietrich was unimpressed, and he commented that they had an official escort to the Temple entrance and didn't need to bother with dissolving any barriers. He had recently grasped the English language, and conveyed this quite well. Rosalind had a counterpoint though: Why use an official route when one wanted to steal the Silver? One would only get caught on the way back. The barrier would block all other exits!
She beckoned them over, so that she might show them the barrier. She walked towards a ridge, and then put out her hand. She leaned on it, as if there were a solid wall in the air. But there was nothing there, nothing could be seen. She placed another hand, and leaned onto them both, at an angle that would be impossible to stand without support. The Adventurers walked up to where she was, and felt along this barrier. It was undulating, and uneven. A smooth, invisible obstacle like rippling blown glass.
She returned to her ranting about the impending fortunes should they aid her. While she pranced about Dietrich used a remarkable combination of stealthy movements and sleight of hand to actually remove a large book from her backpack, glance at its' pages and see an unknown script, and conceal it on his own person all without her noticing a thing. After this she perched on a nearby ridge and gazed off into the distance, out on the Savanna there was an odd pit forming in the ground. This is where the magic would emerge from, she said, and destroy the barrier!
They conferred, and formed a plan, as they were suspicious of her.
Edoni remained near Rosalind, attempting to distract her with conversation. Gerald jogged towards the circle of disciples. Dietrich then walked a short distance away to where he had tied up his loyal and long suffering goat, still recovering from his bullet wound. He then pulled out his dagger and sliced its throat from ear to ear as he enunciated the incantations of a Summoning. The goats blood spilled onto the ground in a great splash, but it blackened, foamed, and vanished as it touched the dust. His spell had been nullified.
Edoni saw Rosalinds hand held up in an esoteric gesture, facing Dietrich and his now ruined goat. She turned her head to face him, narrowed her eyes, and said clearly “Kill them and show your loyalty, or I will destroy you”. Edoni, always more used to the simplicity of handling the dead rather than the difficulties of manipulating the living, simply swung the Wand of Atrocity at her sneering face. It sliced the air in front of her, uselessly. Rosalind then barked out a short chant in a mysterious tongue, and a twisting, twirling mass of violet flames began to coalesce in front of her solar plexus and rapidly elongate towards Edoni. They dissipated into the air as they reached him, however, as he directed his own magic to negate her spell.
Gerald, meanwhile, examined the gathered disciples. Seventeen of them in all, some native to the area while others were clearly European. All were dressed in dirty rags, and clearly worn down by travel. One stood out to him as unique among the throng. She wore coral and leopard, the accouterments of the nobility in Khirima. Like the others though, she was wholly engrossed in the strange chanting and did not acknowledge his approach. He then brought upon himself the Bloodlust once again, and after forming tooth and claw pounced upon them and began shredding, dismembering two of them so thoroughly he became tangled in their robes and began slipping on their spilled fluids.
Dietrich would not be deterred by the waste of his goat in failed sacrifice, and strained his magical technique to Summon and unleash a creature from beyond reality once again. He was successful: the dirt before him was kicked into a cloud as out scrambled a pale and tremendous crab whose top shell floated a bit above the rest of it, suspended by six unseen orbs which created protrusions in its' surface. It's two primary claws were long and melting pincers, almost formless in their dripping inconsistency. With a sense of familiarity he ran towards Rosalind as fast he could as it scuttled after him, intending to destroy him or any it might find in its' path.
Noticing the approach of Dietrich and the crab, and uninterested in combat with both them and Edoni, Rosalimd with a gesture and a word summoned forth a terrific whirl of wind beneath her, but just as it began Dietrich released a magical nullification of his own and the gust harmlessly tousled her hair and cloak before tapering away to nothing. Dietrich then sprinted past Edoni, and tried to pull him along, but could not hold onto him. He then shot at Rosalind with his flintlock, wounding her, and watched as the crab arrived.
The crab fell upon Edoni, and it snipped at him and tore into his flesh with its distorted and inconsistent claws. Around the wounding all perception was transformed: all things were one, all matter was in unity. This derangement radiated outward, afflicting Rosaling as well. So with all things interconnected within the iris, Edoni swung at her yet again, somewhat persuaded that her destruction might not annihilate all matter, but again did not land a blow. Rosalind understood that the region of the totality which resembled a sort of crablike creature before her was of the least consequence were it to be damaged, and so again unleashed from her chest the purple flames which failed to strike Edoni. These began engulfing the crab and burnt it to a crisp, and it crumbled out of this dimension. She then looked towards her disciples, as they were torn apart by the rampaging Gerald, and bolted off towards them so as to violate the next least valuable portion of the oneness and unity.
Gerald fell unto unconsciousness after managing to eviscerate several other acolytes, the rest ran off into the savanna while he collapsed. He lay there covered in gibbets and soaked with blood, draped with dripping bits of robe and strips of parts of dead humans. The screams of the remaining cultists distantly reaching his ears as he lie there near comatose. A vast ship of stone-like wood levitated a hundred paces or so in the air above Dietrich. From what he could see of the deck, it carried statues. It simply floated there, gently and impossibly. He observed it for a time, and saw nearby, where Edoni once stood there was a stele, a column or pedestal of sorts. On it were inscriptions, which seemed to be of many languages. Dietrich approached it. Edoni found himself within a four-walled chamber of dirt stone, organized into something resembling classical architecture and lit by dim flickering crystalline torches. An ancient sedimentary voice cracked out at him, thorough him, around him.
YOU SHALL CLEANSE THIS LAND OF A GREAT EVIL WHICH WAS SUMMONED, OR BE COMPELLED TO SERVE AS A SENTINEL AGAINST WICKED SORCERY FOR FOUR-THOUSAND YEARS.
The archway of a simple door formed before him in the wall ahead.
Dietrich examined the inscription, and carefully read it aloud. A circular arrangement of earthen forms came into existence around him, and placed their hands upon his shoulders, and began sinking into the ground lowering him into the earth with them. Dietrich found himself in a four-walled chamber of dirt and stone, organized into something resembling classical architecture and lit by dim flickering crystalline torches. There was the archway of a simple door in the wall ahead of him.An ancient sedimentary voice cracked out at him, thorough him, around him. YOU HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO CLEANSE THIS LAND OF A GREAT EVIL WHICH WAS SUMMONED, OR BE COMPELLED TO SERVE AS A SENTINEL AGAINST WICKED SORCERY FOR TWO-THOUSAND YEARS.
Ahead in the very dark hallway, Edoni turned around and walked back to meet him.
They walked along this hallway for hours, seeing by the dimmest of light provided by the phosphorescent stones. This hallway was perfectly proportioned and even, never varying one centimeter until it suddenly became crumbled and indistinct, the soil that formed it clumped and crumbling.
They looked in on a shimmering phlegm coated chamber, in which stood the loosely formed body of the thing that had been only partially given form by the interrupted ritual, and remained trapped within the earth. A cloud of gelatinous mucous, from which sprouted 6 left legs of human men. As it had neither front nor back the parts nearest to them approached, kicking at them violently without a sound. Dietrich took his powder horn, and placed a wick into the end of it, and after lighting it with his tinder hurled it at the creature. This exploded with a great bang, but did it little harm. Edoni withdrew the Wand of Atrocity once again, and focused his magical intuitions upon it, in an attempt to direct its malignant forced at the demon. Dietrich then reached in his pack, and retrieved a frost-covered water skin he had filled with green muck in the land of Vilnid, which he opened and flung upon the creature. It spasmed wildly as the frost and icicles formed along its' body, but still it approached.
At this moment Edoni finally understood the magical workings necessary to cause the Wand of Atrocity to emit its vile effects, and he unleashed them upon the creature. The mucous cloud body of the demon seemed to be shrunk as it was pulled inside itself from all angles, while the legs remained sticking out of it. The legs then all suddenly faced upward in a rictus, and then slowly began to be pulled in towards each other while wriggling and crumpling. After a shuddering movement and a still moment they all instantly shucked into the remaining mucous body, with the whole of it then shrinking down only to violently erupt out with a shearing, popping sound while coating the walls of the chamber and all inside it with a fine, glutinous mist and bits of blood, hair, and bone from the exploded legs.
Having seemingly annihilated the thing they then marched for hours back into the sparse chamber of dirt they had seen before. It had changed, there was a simple bench along the back of the wall where they had arrived. They sat upon it, and as it slowly began to rise up a stony voice intoned: GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH: YOU HAVE PURGED A GREAT WICKEDNESS FROM THIS LAND, AND NOW MAY RETURN TO YOUR OWN
The bench arose where the stone pedestal once was. It seemed connected to the earth itself, and could not be moved. It faced them towards the clearing where Gerald lay, and they approached him as he regained awareness. Once he awoke, now covered in dried gore, they gathered beneath the floating vessel and prepared a rope and hook so that they might see what it was that still floated above.
