In The Cards

Some people would have you believe that only hate and anger make you capable of hurting people. They are wrong. Sometimes you hurt the ones you love, and your very fear and concern for them may be just the thing that inadvertently brings them harm. Still, we are none of us perfect. And though it may not seem so in our darkest hours, love will forgive a lot.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Now let me see,” Edwin said. “We are running around in a large cave complex, where pools of disgustingly green acid are abundant. There are all sorts of ghouls and carrion crawlers who want nothing more than to suck the marrow from our bones and gorge themselves upon all sorts of interesting organs usually kept inside the body. Our food supplies are running low, and we may soon be forced to resort to carrion eating ourselves, assuming we come across any carrion. And you waste your sympathies on a dead dwarf? (That girl really needs to adjust her priorities.)”

“Well, I can’t help feeling sorry for Durlag,” Imoen said. “Think about it. He lost everyone he cared about and it drove him crazy.”

“That may be so, but it is beside the point. He’s dead. You can’t help him.”

“How do you know that? And just because I feel sorry for him it doesn’t mean I can’t feel sorry for us too.” Imoen shook her pink head emphatically. “But think about it, being dead and unable to leave this place, stuck here for eternity. How would you feel in Durlag’s place?”

“The thing is,” Edwin morosely said, “that I have a feeling we’re going to find out all about that, one way or another. (Much as I might wish different. But sometimes there is no good choice. None at all.)”

Zaerini had been listening to the conversation with some interest. Edwin had done a pretty much accurate summary of the events of the past few hours. The party had entered a door from the hall where Durlag’s ghost remained, passing into a series of acid and ghoul-infested caves, following the ghost’s suggestion that ‘three paths’ must be taken. So far this particular one had been very tedious. That she could take, but she was getting seriously worried about Edwin. The wizard might try to pretend otherwise, but she could tell that he had been very much affected by the words of the statues in Durlag’s chamber of painful memories, and that he was still brooding over them.

I wonder why he’s so bothered by Durlag’s fate. Sure, it’s all very sad, but isn’t as if he knew the dwarf. The bard resolved to question Edwin on the subject later. She really hated to see him unhappy, and perhaps there might be something she could do to help. There had to be.

Lost in her musings as she was, it was a few seconds before Rini noticed that her friends had fallen silent. Then she turned her head to see what they were looking at and felt her heart sink within her chest. It was a ghoul, but not just any old ghoul. This particular one was twice as large as ordinary, and had wicked claws and teeth in addition to what had probably once been a beautiful sword. As the half-elf looked more closely at the ghoul she could also see that it was wearing the remnants of plate mail armor, long since rusted. Several more ghouls stood behind it, mutely glaring at the adventurers.

“So you have come to this cursed place?” the ghoul hissed. “Fools you are, and doomed as well. Welcome to the damned. You will stay here, yes you will. I guard the withered corpse of that fool Durlag, because there is little else to do!”

“No thank you,” Edwin said. “We really aren’t interested in becoming ghouls. (For one thing ghouls aren’t nearly powerful enough beings.)”

“Not powerful enough?” the ghoul snarled. “Not powerful enough! Bad enough that I, Grael, who was once a great hero, am fallen into undeath, but now you mock me as well? You who walk here just as I did; you will fall as I did from an enemy just as unthinkable! The difference is that Durlag will not be there to take the credit of victory! We fought the demon also! We fought also!! Legend speaks of him, not of us!”

“What do you mean, creature?” Jaheira asked, warily eyeing the ghoul, her fingers clutching her scimitar in a firm grip. “You are an unnatural being, why should we trust a word you say?”

The ghoul laughed, a horrible sound like ripping old leather. “Unnatural?” he chuckled. “You amuse me, druid. I was once much as you. A force of goodness and righteousness, or so I thought. Always so eager to smite evil wherever I found it, and I found it everywhere. Such a great hero I was. And then I died, and I became this abomination, and my friends who were as good and noble heroes as I was, they turned from me and cast me out. They betrayed me. They feared me, and they hated me, and so they reviled me. Well, I had my vengeance. They are dead, and they are here with me now.” He pointed at the row of ghouls behind him.

“Y-you turned your friends into ghouls?” Khalid said, sounding horrified at the thought.

Grael laughed again. “Not I. An evil so grand only fools chase and fight. A Tanar'ri true and horrible. Its name you do not speak unless its attention you wish to bring. Long before it walked and stalked, long before even the fall of the tower. We fought along with Durlag to encase the evil away. His was the blow that won, and ours were the souls that lost. Here we stay, turned to evil unredeemable, but heroes still and not to be killed! A cruel charity! Durlag is legend and we are a pity! Beware the gaze that is not a gaze, but a look into your soul!”

A Tanar’ri? Rini thought, feeling a shiver along her back. A demon. And here I thought we were already in trouble. “Can you tell us anything else?” she asked. “Anything would be helpful. Perhaps we could help each other?”

“Yessss…” Grael hissed. “You can…you can help us. We are trapped, doomed to haunt here. Our names are forgotten, as men would wish to forget our fate, and that noble heroes could so easily be twisted into…into this! You can take the memory of battle and my name and I will be free from the shadow of Durlag and that damnable demon. Fight now, that you can say true that we battle ferocious! You will take the memory from here!”

And yet another conversation turns into a fight to the death. Seems every other person I meet wants to kill me.

Even as she heard Jaheira and Edwin begin chanting spells, the bard slipped into her cat form, using its speed and evasiveness to dash between Grael’s legs, very careful not to look up as she did so. There were certain things she would prefer to leave unknown. Then she was behind the ghoul, and she hastily shifted back to her own shape, drawing her sword even as she did so. Her blow wasn’t forceful enough to sever his head as she had hoped; it merely dangled limply from a few sinews and bits of muscle, even as his body kept attacking. But being nearly headless kept Grael from fighting very effectively, impaired as he was by having his eyes upside-down. He became more clumsy and sluggish, his moves less coordinated.

Rini dodged a blow from another ghoul, narrowly avoiding a nasty scratch to her face. But there were others, many others, and they kept coming even after Grael finally fell. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold out against them for long, her sword arm felt as heavy as lead and she was aching all over. And then there was a subtle shift in the air, a light from no obvious source, and the ghouls faltered, wailing loudly, retreating. “Turn back!” Yeslick said in a firm voice, his hand rose to ward the undead off as he called upon the power of his god. “If ye want to keep on existing, then go far from here and trouble us no longer.”

Several of the ghouls hesitated, looking fearful and agitated before slinking off. The ones who remained were weakened and confused, and easily disposed of. “Thank you, Yeslick,” the bard said in a shaky voice. “That was a very clever thing to do.”

“Oh, ‘twasn’t me, lass,” the dwarf modestly said. “It was Clangeddin. Thank him, if ye must.”

Grael turned out to have yet another wardstone in his possession, and several deadly acid pools and traps later it turned out to open the way to a hidden treasure chamber holding a small fortune in gold and gems. There was also a strange object that didn’t really fit with the rest of the room. A stone throne, standing by itself along one wall.

“More thrones?” Edwin said. “Durlag certainly must have liked them. (Not that I blame him. Was it I, I would have one for every day in the week. Though I think I would also like a comfortable pillow, that seat looks unpleasantly hard.)”

“Hey, maybe it’s not that bad after all!” Imoen said. “I’ll try it.” She sat on the throne, and as soon as she touched it the world rippled and changed once again, and the adventurers found themselves standing in the Compass Chamber, facing the four statues.

“This again,” Rini said, shaking her head. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to go on with it. Who wants to start?”

“I w-will,” Khalid said, approaching the first statue, the one depicting a doppelganger. “S-speak to us, s-statue. What would you h-have us know?”

The statue shifted slightly, and then it spoke, hissing and growling as before. We were the fear made flessssh. We came to the home that Durrrlag built, and we hid in the people that he forrrmed. With tentacles to guide, we poisssoned the clan, and the nightmaresss of Durrrlag came true. Our mastersss said they could tassste his rage even in the air, but alwaysss there was the fear behind. We were the fear made flesssh, but it was already here.

“Tentacles,” Jaheira said. “I think that is a reference to mindflayers. Filthy creatures.”

“Maybe,” Rini said. “But it seems they weren’t what Durlag feared most. Not if the ‘fear was already here.’” She approached the statue of the human builder. “You,” she said. “What have you to say?”

We entrenched this place against all that would come, the statue said, sounding somehow regretful. We built retribution in the trip wires and vengeance in the fireballs. We worked the hatred into every nook and cranny, just as he wished, but our actions were guided from elsewhere. The foundation was the fear that it could happen again, and this was to be prevented at all costs. This was the mortar that held him together. We entrenched this place against all that would come. Friend and foe alike.

“This tower,” Yeslick murmured. “It…reflects the soul of Durlag. Betrayal cost him his kin, his love, his home and sanity. His soul turned dark, he kept it closely guarded, fortified by traps as deadly as any we’ve seen here. But if you keep all your foes out…you risk turning away your friends as well.”

“One more,” Imoen said. “I’ll do it.” She walked over to the thirds statue, the one of a dwarf resembling Durlag. “Hi!” she said. “Sorry to bother you. Do you have anything else to say?” The dwarf statue turned its head towards her with what almost seemed to be a quizzical look, and then it spoke. We followed Durlag. We were his people; his family. Durlag Trollkiller, son of Bolher Thunderaxe the clanless, formed this place with the spoils of a lifetime of adventure. It was majestic in those times, and we took what we needed from the fortune around us. We grew strong and proud, and Durlag felt he finally had a home. We were the future, his family, and if we were lost, then so was he. That was the fear that hid, that was beneath. We followed Durlag. We were his people.

“He wanted to keep them safe,” Edwin murmured, his voice hollow. “He only wanted to keep them safe, and it cost him everything, and them as well. (But…he couldn’t have acted differently, could he? Sometimes…sometimes only one path lies open to us, despite the pitfalls ahead, and the rocks that tear our feet to bloody shreds.)”

This place really seems to be getting to him, Zaerini thought, frowning worriedly. I have to get him out of here soon, I have to. This isn’t good for him, though why he would be tearing himself up so much about the fate of a dead dwarf is quite beyond me. It isn’t like him. “Let us see what Durlag himself has to say,” she said out loud. “I don’t want to hang around this place a second longer than I have to.” Her belly tight with apprehension she walked up to the statue of Durlag Trollkiller. “Now it’s your turn,” she said. “Say what you will.”

The statue stretched, its sad stone eyes fixed upon the young half-elf, and its gravely voice rang out. My father roamed as I, and saw much of the world in his time. Well respected he was, but he had no home. At his end, he died in some far away land, with no dwarven kin by his side. I would not allow such to happen to me. I would not follow his steps that far. I would not be Durlag the clanless. This was my fear. Trace the path of this fear, and show me you have learned.

“It began with you,” Edwin said in a leaden voice, “and with your need for a home…and…and a proper family. It grew with your clan, as you feared losing them, more than anything else. To protect them you built this place, but that drew the very invaders whose coming you feared. The fear became your home where it keeps you safe, along with the hate.” His hands were trembling slightly as he finished speaking.

You understand a little more of me, the statue of Durlag said. You may yet live.

“Maybe,” the wizard whispered even as the teleport spell whisked the party away. “But there are some things I would much prefer not to understand. (I…I just wish I could go home right now. Sometimes I wish we had never come here…)”