Cards Reshuffled

Some adventures are certainly more entertaining than others. One of the worst kinds is when you feel trapped, driven into encounters with monsters that almost seem to have been purposefully placed in the most frustrating and illogical spots possible. Not that I mind variety under other circumstances, but sometimes it gets a bit much, enough to make you feel paranoid.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

The troll was the largest one that Zaerini had ever seen, about twice the size of the ones previously encountered, and it was accompanied by three others, almost as big. There was a nasty glint in its eyes as it eyed her hungrily, and its tusks looked big enough to bite her in half with one bite. She hadn’t found any corpses of the Keep’s fallen defenders, and she had a nasty suspicion that she knew what had become of them. To make things even worse, there was a small group of Yuan-Ti present as well, one of them being the mage that had got away before. Swallowing heavily, the bard wondered if maybe she had got in over her head this time.

Apart from the formidable Lady Delcia, the adventurers had encountered only one survivor. His name was Glaicus, and he was one of the Keep guards, and a powerful warrior. Unfortunately he had also been under the influence of a powerful spell of domination, and had attacked them on sight, raving about his ‘new master’. It had been possible to break the enchantment, but not before he had managed to inflict several wounds on the warriors of the group. Once freed he had been very apologetic, and explained some of what had caused the fall of the Keep De’Arnise. Apparently many guards had deserted, bribed to leave, though he did not know by whom. With the fighting forces diminished, the Keep had soon fallen, and of those who hadn’t managed to flee, far too many had become troll food. Glaicus knew that the leader of the trolls was named TorGal, but it wasn’t a troll who had charmed him. The Yuan-Ti matriarch had seen to that.

“Who commands them?” Anomen had asked. “The trolls or the serpent folk?”

“Neither,” Glaicus had said, looking frustrated. “They are both give orders by somebody else…I overheard as much while I was under their influence. But I do not know who it is. The trolls used the name ‘Stronger’.”

He had given them one more of the heads to the magical flail, which he had hidden on his person before falling victim to the charm spell, and then departed. It had been clear that he was ashamed of not staying to fight, but there was despair and fear in his eyes when he spoke of the trolls, as if he had been at least partially broken by his experiences. At least he had been able to tell them where the third charm spell was hidden. Unfortunately, his shock made him neglect to mention the guardian golems keeping watch over the thing and its fellow treasures. That little battle had cost Minsc a few broken ribs and internal bleeding, Anomen a severe concussion and Nalia a shattered knee. The battle had been won in the end, mostly due to the fact that the largest of the golems was too big to fit through the door of the room and kept blocking the way of the smaller ones, but it had been a very close call that had more or less depleted their healing spells.

And then we had to go and run into the Umber Hulks. Honestly, what’s next? Mindflayers? Drow warriors? Fire giants? Minsc had turned out to know a bit about smithing, enough to work the Keep’s magical forge at any rate, and so the magical Flail had been reforged, a magnificent weapon that did fire, acid and cold damage with its three respective heads. At least two of those should prove very useful against trolls, and it had been decided that Anomen should be the one to carry the weapon. The cleric wasn’t an expert, but he had at least practiced with various weapons during his squire training, and he was strong enough to wield the heavy weapon properly. Rini had dared to hope that things would start to look up a bit. And then, there had been the Umber Hulks.

These beasts lurked down in the dungeons, or the ‘cellars’ as Nalia insisted on calling them. Subterranean creatures, Eddie called them. Well, I don’t think a regular old cellar qualifies. Shouldn’t they be in the Underdark or something? When I get hold of the person responsible for collecting this exotic menagerie together in one piece I’ll…I’ll…feed him to a Night Mare. If I can find one. Oh, and what other fascinating bits of information were there? Favorite food: humans. Why am I not surprised?

The Umber Hulks were lumbering big black things, thick-necked and bulky, each one with four tiny black eyes that made your mind wander astray if you looked into them for too long. Edwin had managed to hold them for a minute or so by his quick casting of a Cloud Kill into the room where they laired, and then slamming the door. Unfortunately, then the Umber Hulks simply dug through the wall. Still, it had slowed them down a little, and that was probably the only reason why the adventurers had survived the battle. By now they were all bruised and bloody though. We should have waited. I can see that now. It was just that Nalia was so worried about her father…especially once we found those cells.

The cells had probably been used by Nalia’s ancestors once upon a time, to hold those of their subjects who weren’t loyal enough. There had been other things as well, things that made the half-elf’s blood run cold. Spiky iron things, irons that could be heated, pincers, even a rack. It had reminded her of…him. Irenicus. As her eyes roamed over the terrible things she could feel the pain again, the cold and the hot, the biting, the tearing, the lashes and… No! Don’t think about it! Don’t…don’t even think about it. I don’t want to remember any more. No more…

It would have been nice to be able to pretend that the things in the dungeons were all old relics, long forgotten. However, the blood splattered all over them said differently. Too much blood to come from a single person. Most probably some of the people captured had been kept alive for a while, with the trolls trying to get information out of them. Why didn’t they just use charm spells, like on Glaicus? Maybe…maybe they enjoyed this way better. Irenicus…I don’t think he was enjoying himself much. That was what made it even worse…

She had forced herself to go on somehow, aware of the worried glances coming her way. Especially Edwin and Jaheira seemed to hover at her side constantly, being the ones who knew the most of what she had been through previously. She tried to keep it hidden, as much as possible, both for her own sake and theirs, but she wasn’t sure how long she could keep the pretense up. And Nalia…the poor girl had been crying ever since she saw the state the dungeons were in, yet somehow she went on, proving herself to be braver than you might first think. She meant to have her father rescued, and she meant to do it now. I understand how she feels. How could I not? Gorion…I would have done anything to save him. Anything. But still, we may have rushed in too quickly.

And as the large troll named TorGal opened his mouth to speak, Zaerini sincerely hoped that the eagerness wouldn’t prove to be a fatal one.

Meanwhile a trio of mismatched travelers were approaching Keep De’Arnise from the west. Montaron certainly hadn’t been sad to leave Athkatla behind for the moment. Being dead hadn’t exactly been the most pleasant experience of his life…so to speak. He wasn’t eager to repeat it, and both he and Xzar knew that the Harpers would be out for blood once they learned of their agent’s death and of the escape of the two Zhentarim. Well, at least Montaron presumed that Xzar knew, though the wizard had put it as: ‘The servants of the Rutting Goat with the Thousand Young will scream and gibber as the souls wail over apples long rotted and the worms sing in their piping voices of secrets best left unknown.’

Abduh had said ‘Urrrrghhh’. Probably that was an affirmation.

No, Montaron didn’t like to think about being dead at all. He was still having stop himself from checking that he was still breathing, and he kept remembering how it had felt to depart the body. It had been especially nasty to learn that the soul didn’t depart the body at once, but lingered for a while. And since the Harpers had seen fit to stuff him into a locked trunk, his soul had spent a miserably time in there, with only himself for company, and not very pleasant company either. The fact that his companion kept pestering him about it didn’t make things better.

“But Monty,” Xzar was saying, “can’t you tell me a little bit about it? I really want to know what it was like, it would help so much with my experiments.”

“Ye want to know what it was like? How about I stick a knife or two in yer belly, and ye can find out for yerself?”

The mad wizard simply giggled, his tattooed face scrunched up with delight. “Oh Monty, you make the funniest jokes! You know you couldn’t possibly kill me. Why, if you did, the world as we know it would cease to exist! If not for the chants I do every morning, we would all be…two dimensional. Flat as pancakes. And if we were, then They would be able to get to us.”

“They?” Montaron asked, against his better judgment.

“Yesss…They. They lurk outside the fabric of time and space, beyond the very border of our multiverse. They see everything you do, you know! EVERYTHING! And they play with us…terrible, terrible games.”

Montaron jumped a little, and couldn’t help looking over his shoulder in case some terrible entity was sneaking up on him. “Huh,” he snorted. “Next ye’ll say They were the ones plotting to have me killed.”

“They were! They were! They rule everybody, you know. The Harpers too, and you and me, even poor little Abduh.” Xzar lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They decide every moment of our lives…they just…POINT AT US AND OFF WE GO, PAWNS OF THEIR TERRIBLE POWERS! Aaaahhhh! STOP TOUCHING ME! The magic…the terrible magic of the rodent and the square box!”

“Will ye stop it? Nobody’s touching ye!”

“Actually,” Xzar said, suddenly sounding frighteningly calm, “they tend to war among themselves, each Power rearranging Reality according to their wishes. Why, in some worlds we could be dead already. And some of the females are quite pleasant about the clicking…”

Montaron felt like either screaming or weeping at this point, not an uncommon occurrence with Xzar. “What?” he flatly asked.

Xzar blinked, then looked confused. “Did you say something, Monty?”

“Ye mentioned females,” Montaron said between clenched teeth.

“Did I? No, no, I’m sure I would have remembered that.” Xzar shook his head. “Poor Monty,” he said, patting the halfling on the head. “I think death unsettled you a little. There are no females here, are there, Abduh?”

“Urrrrrghhhh,” the zombie answered forlornly.

“Yes, Abduh. I’m sure they’d love you if they only got to know you better.” Xzar shrugged. “No, no females around I’m certain, more’s the pity.”

Montaron sighed. “So, where to now?”

“Oh, wherever the wind takes us, far from all Harpers for now. I thought we’d stop at this castle that’s said to be not too far from here. Should be a good place to rest a day or so.” Xzar’s eyes suddenly lit up disturbingly. “And maybe they have some nice dungeons…and corpses…”

“Yeah, but a castle? They won’t put us up, will they?”

“Of course they will, Monty!” Xzar stretched proudly. “You know I come from an old family, a very old family. Why, practically all of my cousins were cousins, and my parents were my cousins too.”

“Yeah? Well, me…me ma could skin a body in under five minutes! And I’m practically sure I know who me da was. One out of three, at least.”

“That’s good!” Xzar said, beaming. “In the nobility, the more relatives you have, the better. And mine breed like…like…” A cloud passed over his face. “Like RABBITS! AAAAAHHHHH!” He hitched up his robe over his knees and ran off into a nearby field, shrieking wildly.

“Urrrghhh?” Abduh asked.

“No, he’ll come back,” Montaron automatically replied. “Just don’t let him get to any sharp objects.” Then he sighed deeply as he realized what he was doing. I’m talking to the zombie. I’m actually talking to the zombie, and worse, I can understand what he’s saying. The wizard is contagious, I knew it! Hope we get to this castle soon, before I go totally insane. I need some rest…a nice, quiet place, with no mad wizards around.