Chapter 27 - Violation (mature themes)

The party stepped out of the lift into the passage.

“What in the name of –” began Theodoric.

The passage was much like the first they’d encountered, for about twenty feet. From that point on, it was a stone-floored tunnel lit with torches. It had the familiar look of a dungeon. The metal of the passage and the stone beyond it had been merged together seamlessly.

The party exchanged confused glances. Theodoric looked to Valygar and Neracer, both of whom were at a total loss for an explanation.

Yoshimo spoke first. “Might I suggest I scout ahead, for traps?”

“That’s a good idea, Yoshimo”, Theodoric acknowledged. “We proceed as before, everyone. Whatever’s going on here, we have to keep our wits about us.”

They party moved slowly up the stone passage, Yoshimo checking for snares and other traps. The torches affixed to the walls appeared to be magical, but otherwise unexceptional.

The passage continued for a time before ending at a reinforced wooden door. Noises could be heard coming from behind it. Yoshimo listened at the door and shrugged.

“Activity, and lots of it. But I can make out nothing specific” the thief said apologetically.

“I have memorized a scrying magic” Neracer offered helpfully. “One we could all see.” Theodoric nodded.

Neracer rummaged in his pack and withdrew the ornate silver mirror he’d been lugging around since his rescue in the Umar Hills.

“I told you this would come in handy, Yoshimo” he said airily.

Neracer took the polished metal mirror in his left hand and chanted over it. After several moments, his reflection was replaced by a flickering image of what lie beyond the door.


*


They saw a huge, cavern-like room. The room was dominated by a trio of squat brass furnaces along one wall. Pipes ran from each structure into the walls and ceilings. Intense white light burned from behind a glass porthole in the front of each furnace. Leading up to each furnace was a set of rails. At the other end of the room was what appeared to be a large magical portal. There was movement in the room. Several dozen small humanoids pushed mine carts in and out of the portal.

“What is this place?” Theodoric asked.

“It looks like some sort of magic forge” Neracer whispered back, straining to keep his focus on the image, which was becoming blurry. “Though I’ve never seen anything on this grand a scale before.”

“Those people”, Jaheira added. “They look like halflings.”

The creatures did appear to be the general size and shape of halflings, but any resemblance to the halflings they’d known ended there. Even at a distance, one could see the creatures were horribly deformed, with cruel, twisted features. Many also had strange burns and growths on their arms and faces.

The halflings labored to move cartload after cartload of some yellowish ore to the furnaces. There they dumped the ore into a feeding hopper leading into the furnace. The empty carts were taken back through the portal on a separate mine rail. In the back of the room was a dais, with a pair of exceptionally hideous halflings that seemed to be acting as overseers. In their hands they held weapons, both strange and familiar. Behind them was what looked like a stairwell.


The image grayed out unexpectedly, the mirror returning to its former appearance. Neracer was sweating profusely. “I’m sorry” he said. “There was some sort of interference, maybe from the furnaces. I kept it as long as I could.”


“We’ve seen enough” Theodoric said. “I doubt those creatures are going to be friendly.”

“Not likely” Yoshimo said. “Though they may be unwilling slaves of the Necromancer.”

“Slaves dominated by two of their own”, Jaheira added. “Likely it is the overseers intent that will determine the reaction of the others.”

“We’ll try the friendly approach, but let’s be ready for trouble” Theodoric replied.


*


After taking a minute to prepare themselves with defensive magics and get into formation, the adventurers opened the door and entered the room.

They’d no sooner entered the room when the creatures within stopped. Unfriendly eyes stared hard at them. Theodoric stepped forward, hands up, smiling.

“Hello!” he yelled across the room. The two halflings on the dais stirred and stepped forward. One was larger than the other. He appeared to be the leader, adorned in skins and furs. In one hand he had a strange looking wand, in the other a whip. The second halfling was female. She was unarmed, but there was a keeness in her eyes that unnerved Theodoric. Her misshapen head bulged in the forehead and temples, and pulsed rhythmically. It exchanged glances with the chieftain.

That... thing must his consort Theodoric realized.

The two overseers stepped into the middle of the room, examining Theodoric and his cohorts. Theodoric again called out to them. The two halflings looked at each other for a moment.

The chieftain let out a hiss.

The halfling miners raised their picks and hammers and came at them in a wave, howling like savage beasts. The adventurers fell into a defensive formation, trying to offset the halfling’s greater numbers.

Valygar drew first blood, slashing a miner open from belly to sternum with his katana. The others followed suit, laying into the wretched creatures as they swarmed towards them. The miners came on heedless of the appalling losses they took. Their actions were bestial, pack-like. When one landed a hard blow on Minsc, the others swarmed the big Rashemani, trying to bring him down. Minsc howled in rage and went berzerk, nearly cutting his halfling victims in half with the ferocious blows he started landing.

The miners were falling quickly, and Theodoric could see the overseers fleeing for the staircase behind the dais.

“Jaheira, you’re with me!” he shouted as he pursued the fleeing creatures. Jaheira finished off an opponent and was close behind him.

Theodoric overtook the halflings before they could reach the staircase and cut them off. The chieftain snarled and raised the odd looking wand at him.

The wand discharged, firing a thin crimson beam at Theodoric. The beam seared through his thigh armor and went straight through the leg beneath it. Theodoric cried out as his leg buckled and he fell to his knees. The chieftain whooped in victory and snatched a bone club to close in for the kill.

Jaheira was but a few steps behind him when he fell. She sped up and moved to protect him. The female halfling interposed herself between Jaheria and Theodoric and sneered. Jaheira raised her staff to strike the creature, then suddenly froze.

The creature’s forehead pulsated rapidly as time slowed for Jaheira. She felt it somehow pushing into her mind with its own, prying into her most intimate thoughts with its vicious desires. She tried to block the creature out, force it from of her mind, but was powerless to stop what was happening. The halfling gave out a mental leer as it found something of great interest to it. The outside world dissolved before Jaheira and a memory of Khalid came unbidden. It was the memory of the night they’d first consumated their love for each other so many years ago.


*


Ten years ago, a warm summer night in Tethyr.


Jaheira could smell honeysuckle flowers on the breeze that drafted through the open window in her bedchamber. Khalid stood before her, his slender but taut frame ruddy in the light of the hearth’s waning fire.

“Kha-Khalid? Oh, my sweet Khalid” she whispered, taking him into her arms.

Khalid kissed her gently, almost timidly, at first. Soon, desire lent boldness to his touch. And in a moment they would know forevermore as Love itself, the two lovers became as one.

So deep was she in the throes of passion, a long moment passed before Jaheira realized she was no longer in her bed but in a cold, hard place. She opened her eyes to see Theodoric leering down at her.

Jaheira screamed in terror, bringing an evil smile to the paladin’s lips. She fought wildly to be free of his grasp, striking him across the face repeatedly. Theodoric laughed cruelly, his face shifting with nightmarish slowness.

Khalid looked down on her, his dead, rheumy eyes accusing her from beyond the grave.


*


A tortured moan came from Jaheira’s throat, barely human. She was beyond realizing the creature’s vile satisfaction, its glee at despoiling the memory and twisiting it into a scene of ugliness and hate. Her sanity began to leave her as the halfling increased its transgression into her mind.

A blinding spray of colored light struck the halfling in the face. Jaheira snapped back to reality and saw the creature clawing at its eyes. Neracer was standing next to her, his hand outstretched.

In a wild rage, Jaheira sprinted forward and smote the creature with her staff. It fell to the ground and she struck again.


And again.


And again and again, crushing the creature’s skull and spattering its brains about.


“Jaheira! JAHEIRA!” shouted Neracer. “You got her, she’s dead! She’s dead.”

Jaheira looked down at the grisly results of her handiwork, dazed. “Wh-what?”

“Are you alright, Jaheira?” Neracer said. “You don’t look-”

“Just, just leave me be!” she snapped angrily.



*


Theodoric fended off the worst of the chieftan’s wild strikes and wounded it with several short thrusts before plunging the blade deep into its chest. It grimaced and hissed even as it died on his blade. Theodoric turned to see Jaheira had defeated the chieftain’s partner, and that the others had defeated the remaining miners. Minsc was looking about for more enemies to smash, but appeared to be calming down.


Dragging his leg about, Theodoric plopped down on his rump. He unstrapped his thigh armor, each movement sending a fresh ripple of agony through his swollen thigh. The armor had a coin sized hole melted in it and his flesh was charred where the beam had struck him.

“Oh, you’re hurt!” Aerie cried, reaching him first. She cast her quickest healing spell on him, which reduced the pain only slightly.

“I think I will need more than one spell this day” he smiled weakly.

The others reached them a moment later, all except Jaheira, who was standing alone several feet away.

“What happened?” Valygar said, his expression deadly serious. “What did that creature do to you?”

“He shot me with that wand of his, and my leg went useless” Theodoric said, sweat pouring down in streams across his face. “I cannot move it.”

Neracer went to the halfling’s body and examined the wand. It was slender, with a softly glowing crystal in the tip. The wand was attached to the top of what looked like a large bracer, with a stubby grip connected to the bottom of the bracer in the halfling’s hand. Neracer pried open the halfling’s grasped hand, twisting the grip away in the process. At that moment, the bracer released and slid off. The crystal in the wand went dark.

“Be careful with that thing” Valygar growled. Neracer nodded absently, examining it closely. He then slipped it on, the bracer constricting firmly around his wrist and the grip rotating into his hand. There was a small button in the end of the grip and the crystal in the tip of the wand was glowing softly once again.

Neracer aimed the wand at one of the empty mine carts and squeezed the button on the end of the grip with his thumb. A crimson beam lanced out, penetrating the side of the cart. Neracer released the button, then reaimed and held the button in. Directing the beam downwards, Neracer cut the cart neatly in two.

“Interesting”, Neracer said.

“Not exactly the word I would use to describe it” Theodoric said, wincing as Aerie applied a more powerful healing spell to his throbbing leg.

“No, I suppose not”, Neracer said guiltily. Deftly twisting the grip, the bracer released and the device shut itself off.

“Any better?” Valygar asked.

Theodoric nodded. “Yes, I can move my leg again.” He got to his feet after replacing his thigh protector. “Thank you, Aerie.”

Aerie looked relieved. “I was worried for you.”

“I was worried for me too, for a minute there.”

Jaheira was still standing by herself. Theodoric called over to her.

“Are you alright Jaheira?” he asked as he walked over to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Jaheira, I said are you-?”

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted, shoving him hard in the chest. “ DON’T YOU *DARE* TO TOUCH ME!!!”

Theodoric recoiled, stunned. Hatred burned in Jaheira’s eyes. “Jaheira, it’s me. What’s wrong?!?”

Jaheira’s eyes cooled. “I – nothing. Nothing!” She pushed past him without another word, taking her place in the group. The others exchanged looks but said nothing.

“Right”, Theodoric said after a lingering moment of stunned silence. “Let’s do a check of the room before proceeding. We might find some clue that could be helpful. Yoshimo, check that staircase out for traps.”

As the other adventurers went about their assigned tasks, Theodoric looked at the remains of the halfling consort.

What in Torm’s name did that creature do to her? It was as if I was an enemy in Jaheira’s eyes. No, worse than just an enemy. I was a *monster*, something to be hated and feared. Valygar was right about the necromancer. Whoever this Lavok is, he must be a wicked being indeed if he has such creatures as this in his employ.


“The stairs are now clear”, Yoshimo announced, aftering disarming a crude deadfall snare.

Theodoric glanced at Jaheira, who would not return his gaze.

“Let’s get moving.”