40. Sins of the Flesh

40. Sins of the Flesh

The sour expression upon the divine features of the sirine was odd. Onyx was overcome with pity for the pure creature, surely whatever wrong had displeased her must be righted.

“This is not your place!” she wailed through the rain. “This is the home of Sil’s tribe. Dirty land folk, you shall suffer for your trespass.”

The party was already moving. For Onyx, this meant turning around, and slugging Khalid with a dull echo of metal against jawbone. They had been too tightly packed for battle, the half-elven warrior had been delayed drawing his weapon or raising his shield, and now he was sent right back into the third row of the party. Imoen was almost bowled over but hopped out of the way, her eyes staring with anguish at her friend’s betrayal. Garrick beside her instead pushed forward, propping Khalid up with his momentum. The charmed paladin lunged now out at Viconia, who had been quick to move away at Safana’s warning and begin a spell, but the paladin followed and shoved her with all his weight, and she fell back on the sand.

Dynaheir was also starting a spell, but then the bodyguard who had moved in front of her turned around and shoved her and she fell too. “Minsc will help the poor little sirine just like our dryad friend! Injustice must be righted! RAAARRGH!” He spun around again, frothing, and grabbed Imoen and Garrick by the hair as they trained shortbow and crossbow on the sirines ahead. They shrieked helplessly as he clunked their skulls together, and then let them drop and lunged forward at Khalid, who was using his shield to fend off Onyx’s continued unarmed attacks. He grabbed the half-elf by the shoulders and slung him to the ground.

Only Jaheira and Safana had been spared this madness, having rushed forward past to combat the sirines, stopping the charms at the source. The sea fey were retreating, up the bank, and grabbing for shortbows and small quivers there. Safana gained upon and drove her bowie knives into the breasts of one, twisting and pushing in between ribs, then dragging the serrated blades out and kicking off the butchered water nymph. Jaheira had half-crushed the skull of a second with her quarterstaff, but Sil and the last then loosed arrows. One grazed along Jaheira’s neck, the other stuck shallowly in Safana’s stomach. The women charged, heedless of the minor wounds, but Safana balked with the first sting of some poison. The sirines retreated further up the bank and wove spells. Jaheira and Safana recognized the pull of the charm magics upon their wills, and battle-cried away to Silvanus or Sharess. They reached their targets, and Safana fell upon a sirine with a flamboyant flash of bowie knives, knocking the bow from the sirine’s hands and then making two shallow slashes across the flawless skin. The sirine couldn’t back up faster than Safana could stride in, and the disarming knife raced for and into her stomach, up the hilt, then twisted, and Safana yanked it up, spilling out intestine.

Sil gracefully wove under and around the first few long swings of the quarterstaff, firing an arrow that didn’t pierce her attacker’s splintmail. Jaheira moved from a same-ended grip to a first-and-third quarters, and jabbed with both ends. She knocked Sil’s left hand and crunched it, disarming her, then brought the other end of her staff forward, but Sil ducked it and darted behind the druid, only to find herself face-to-face with Safana, who slashed open her throat with a snarl, and gutted her.

“Stay away from my charge,” Jaheira nodded begrudgingly to the knife-wielding pirate, “And I just might tolerate you for a while more.”

Safana, heaving from exertion and the toxin, had no riposte other than a universal hand gesture, then she knelt and vomited, onto Sil in repayment for her.

“Ohh…how sensual,” Jaheira mock-moaned, then her eyes flicked back down the beach.

Minsc stood wrapped in vines up to his waist, howling, swinging the half-ogre’s greatsword around in every direction, limited to a circle that was quite devoid of his companions, who had made themselves rather scarce.

Imoen, though, was playing keep-away, a horrified look upon her face, in outright tears, Onyx was chasing her and making merciless swings with Varscona, and she would dart around a tree or bush each time, crying, “Stop, Onyx! It’s me! It’s Imoen! Stop you idiot stop…”

Minsc’s entangler, Viconia, was hiding at some distance, and weaving a spell. She completed it with a clap and a shout, and the paladin froze midswing, leaving Imoen’s neck between a treetrunk and the blade. The girl panted, slumped down, and scurried off, body convulsing. She crawled under the thicket where Viconia hid, clutched the drow, who actually held her back, stroking her dark hair and whispering foreign but soothing words.

“Sweet Silvanus,” Jaheira gasped, visibly weak, and not from any poison.

“Charming magic,” Safana said neutrally, wiping off and slipping her bowie knives onto her hips. “It is often anything but.”

Jaheira spotted Garrick and Khalid peeping around trees, both shivering in fright. They looked about for Dynaheir, and heard her behind themselves, and turned to see the witch striding, and flaking shrub-leaves from her dress.

“You’re hurt,” she announced, looking to Safana.

“I’ll be-“ the woman insisted before retching again. The witch put her dark hands on the woman’s shoulders, and then reached into her robs, and produced and almost force-fed her a fragrant dried herb.

“Thank you…” Safana gasped, feeling her blood cleanse over the next moments.

Jaheira, in turn, healed the back of Dynaheir’s head, bleeding from its impact with the rocks. They retreated and crouched behind brush, hoping the charms would end their time before Viconia’s magical restraints.

Minsc calmed down after a few minutes, blinked, and looked about. “What! What…what have we done, Boo?” the ranger let his great sword fall to the pebbles, and put his hands over his face, sobbing like a small boy. “Woe are we. Minsc has attacked his very own witch, whom he was sworn to protect and is a very good friend besides. It is not a happy day…what, Boo? Ahhh....you are right as always, my faithful companion from space. Heroes must not sulk, but steel their minds against the magics of naughty sylvan creatures henceforth.”

Viconia was leading Imoen out from under the brush; Onyx’s charm had surely ended to. The paladin’s sword fell into the grass, and he stared at his own hands, and then sank to his knees, pale and aghast. “By all that’s…no…” he took off his helm, slumped forward, forehead against the treetrunk, and wept, until he felt a light hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Safana. He tried to blink away evidence of his tears, and rose.

“You were Charmed,” she explained, orienting her own breath away from him to hide evidence of her embarrassment. She looked at him and added, “It happens,” more playfully.

“I could have killed her,” he winced, “She’s…she’s my closest friend, since…since we were kids.”

“Oh?”

“Yes…and I…am” he closed his eyes, and exhaled with great relief. Lathander hadn’t deserted him.

“Strong,” Safana smiled. “Your will shall strengthen.”

Onyx hesitated. “Thank you…I hope so.”

“No...” she winked, “…you know so. That’s why I call it will.”

A loud cough interrupted them, and then spun to face Jaheira. She raised a hand to forestall her charge’s gushing apology. Safana rolled her eyes, and moved off to loot the sirines.

Viconia had coaxed Imoen from their hiding place, Khalid and Garrick had crept from theirs. Dynaheir consoled her bodyguard, patting his bulging arm and whispering maternally in their native tongue. Onyx mumbled an uneasy apology to the group while Jaheira tended to her husband, and his first act with his un-busted lips was to kiss her.

When Safana returned to join them, and Viconia healed her of her arrow wound, the party now all turned up the beach, and found the cave.

“X marks the spot,” Safana grinned.

Jaheira looked cross. “If you didn’t know about the sirines, what else don’t you know?”

“Oh please,” Safana sneered, “You might as well blame me for us happening upon any band of kobolds on this peninsula.”

“Flesh golems, you said?” Dynaheir spoke up matter-of-factly. “Poison is effective, they are creatures of flesh and blood and nothing but.”

“Why…” Safana slung the gathered quiver of sirines’ arrows from her shoulder, “…how convenient. Perhaps ‘Sil’ was worth our while after all.” She held the quiver out to the warriors. “Come and get it, boys.”

Onyx, Minsc, and Khalid looked at one other, shrugged, and each took six arrows.

“Can we outrun them?” Onyx asked Dynaheir.

“You could, yes,” the witch nodded.

“We’ll run in,“ he nodded left and right to ranger and Harper, “Play hit and, well, run.”

Safana cocked her head at him, and grinned broadly. “Daring and brilliant.”

Viconia snickered. “Flattering and vacuous.”

Safana clamped her mouth shut, and scolded herself.

“A fine plan,” Jaheira nodded, and looked at her husband. “That’s hit and run, dear.”

Viconia snickered again. “It’s unnecessary to tell Khalid that. If I know this, surely you should by now.”

Jaheira ignored the drow, as hugged her smiling husband. “B-b-back in a bit,” he grined, pecked her on the cheek.

He, his charge, and their new friend from the east marched through the mouth of the cave, bows drawn with these new arrows, and soon moved to single file. Soon the passage split. Onyx gestured left for himself, right for the other two, thinking Minsc could shoot right over Khalid’s head. They moved apart.

Neira’s helm illuminated the passage with his own bodyheat, and Onyx stared carefully into the dark, moving forward, into a larger chamber. Then he heard the footsteps, and felt them. He recognized one of Thalantyr’s sentries at once, lumbering along as if on patrol. Then its ‘head’ craned his way, and it gave a formless roar, and made for him, raising the arms that were nothing but muscle. Lots of muscle.

Onyx loosed an arrow into its chest, then drew and shot another, then backtracked a few steps and shot a third, then a fourth. They embedded around its expansive chest, the meat growing green in outward expanding circles. Onyx ran back further; now able to hear the others clambering back down the passage, and stopped to fire his last two arrows. Then, he fully turned and ran, meeting Minsc and Khalid right at the juncture, and able to hear another set of heavy footsteps up their passageway. Together they bolted back to the cave entrance. But then one set of footsteps ended with a single, heavy crash, followed soon by another.

“Minsc’s witch is very smart!”

“There m-might be m-m-m-m-more.”

Minsc and Khalid had each spent three arrows felling their construct, they each gave one to Onyx. They made their way up the cavern again, but right at the juncture a third golem was moving over the bodies of its fellows, moving for the warriors for a mindless vengeance. One wave of three arrows landed its chest, then it moved an arm across its body, taking two of the next follow, the third landing in its shapeless crotch. The three turned and bolted until they stood in daylight. Khalid nodded when he made out the victorious crash.

The warriors looked at each others’ empty quivers, hoping that was the last. They ran back in, and all took the left branch this time. The cave circled into a second large chamber, with a pool and a small ‘island’ that held a great, piraty-looking chest, and then they took a distinctively manmade bridge over a chasm, and found themselves curving around and in a large chamber Khalid and Minsc had found, which connected right back to the original juncture.

“Three, and no more,” Onyx announced to the rest once they returned to daylight. Safana smiled specifically at him, but spared any flattery in sultry tones. The rest murmured approval, and the paladin and ranger took some comfort, warmed by having protected their companions in this battle, after their horrid acts in the last.

The nine moved within the cave, to the chamber with the chest.

Safana studied it for a moment. “I don’t think it’s trapped.

Imoen’s eyes widened. “Ooh! Cool, I was wonderin that too.. How’d ya know?”

“I, eh…just don’t see anything that looks like a trap.”

“But, um, what looks like a trap?”

“Mmm...” she smiled in thought, and passed glances around the party, “It’s a long and complex list, and the tide is rising. Perhaps when we have time…tonight around the campfire.”

“Yay!!”

Jaheira glared at Safana, then looked accusingly at her husband and charge when they voiced nor projected no objection. Viconia and Dynaheir didn’t look happy, but neither said anything. While Safana stepped over the water onto the small island, Jaheira opened her mouth.

“I’m-gonna-learn-bout-booby-traps, I’m-gonna-learn-bout-booby-traps,” Imoen sang, and danced circles around Garrick.

Jaheira sighed, and closed her mouth. Safana appraised the mildewy, waterlogged chest, which bore a grinning pirate skull on the rusted lock. Safana merely busted it apart with the hilt of a bowie knife, and then threw back the lid.

There wasn’t quite the flash of shining gold from within, but the pirate-lady set to work digging, murmuring unhappily. Onyx stepped across the island, and looked over her shoulder. Dynaheir stepped up, looked in too, and cast a divination cantrip, and pointed out the magical items to Safana. She slung off her rucksack, and took a wand, a cloak, a tome, a sleeve of darts, and a pouch of potions.

Safana swore, and sighed. “We’re not exactly retiring.” She slammed the lid with a sigh, then glanced over to grin at Onyx. “I suppose we’ll just have to keep working, and we have worked well together, wouldn’t you agree?” Her hip nudged his. “Perhaps we could continue this working relationship beyond just one treasure hunt, that is, if you’ll have me. If you haven’t guessed yet, my skills are of a thieving nature.”

“Perhaps,” Dynaheir cut in from over her shoulder, “That is what might worry us.” She stared pointedly over the thief’s head at Onyx. “Paladins are not known for keeping such company lightly, and neither are Wychalarn.”

Onyx looked appraisingly at Safana, and not in the way she might have preferred. “We have our standards,” he offered.

Safana curtsied. “My my, such noble company. A girl can only be honored. Don’t you worry, I’m nobility myself.”

“We’re more about the ‘deed’ kind, here,” Onyx stated neutrally, “Birth, not so much.”

She looked back at the paladin, and winked. “I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise.”

“That’s good to hear.”

She raised her eyebrows, looking somewhat indignantly at the harsh faces of the paladin and the witch. She turned around, and leaned back against the chest, facing the group across the underground stream. “We’ll have to get back into town to divvy and appraise our findings. Shall we be off, then?”

Jaheira frowned. The lady had a convenient, but good point. “The sooner the better.”

Once outside, they appraised the modest treasure.. The cloak had.the odd power of being able to turn its wearer into a wolf. After magically identifying it, Garrick tossed it over Imoen’s shoulders to shield her from the continuing rain if nothing else, and they were on their way, winding north along the coast.

Imoen huddled closer under the cloak as Candlekeep came into view.