Throne Of Cards 68 – The Twisted Trail
If you find yourself sneaking around the stronghold of an Evil Overlord, always try your best to be alert about your surroundings. You never know what clues to his one weakness or badly hidden self-destruct button to the stronghold you might find lying around. Even the smaller details can prove useful later. Something as small as knowing he sleeps with a stuffed animal can let you booby-trap his teddy and spare you a tedious battle later on.
Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’
“What is that noise?” Zaerini mused as she leaned against the wall in one of the upper corridors of Yaga Shura’s castle. There was a rather hideous painting hanging above her, of an old lady giant with a very severe bun. Yaga Shura’s mother? Not Nyalee but his biological mother? Ugh, don’t want to think too much about Bhaal fooling around with her.
“Oh, who knows,” Sarevok said. “It could be anything, really. The sound of the boots of some unfortunate victim banging against a door…the machines of the torture chamber…heads being thrown into baskets…”
“None of those are exactly encouraging, Big Brother. I’m trying to convince myself Immy will be all right, after all.”
“I’m just being realistic about what to expect in the stronghold of an Evil Overlord. Oh, it could also be some infernal machine designed to destroy the universe or the marching hordes of enraged minions about to join Yaga Shura’s army.” The large warrior pursed his lips in thought, his golden eyes narrowing. “I suppose it would be more giants in that case, unless there are creatures in here we don’t know about. Fire themed creatures, it would almost have to be.”
“Well if it is, I hope Immy doesn’t decide to try to sneak past them on her own.” The bard slid down the wall and sat down on the ground with a sigh. “May as well get comfy, this could take a while.”
Sarevok nodded, and sat down beside her, his towering presence oddly comfortable. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” He said. “This seems like a good opportunity.”
“What is it?”
“You didn’t deny it. I thought that worth discussing.”
“Deny what?”
“Back in the kitchens. I brought up your potential as the new goddess of Murder.” Sarevok turned his head to look straight at her, his eyes burning into hers. “You didn’t deny such a possibility. So I ask you, little sister. Should we reach the end of the path, the power there for you to grasp, a willing tool to shape the world as you wish – will you seize it?”
Rini squirmed. This wasn’t what she’d expected at all, but she cursed herself for a fool for not doing so. Her brother could be perceptive about things that interested him, she knew that. She should have known he’d bring this subject up, the one she really didn’t want to think about. “I know it might come to that,” She reluctantly admitted. And she did, deep in her blood and bones. She didn’t need Bhaal telling her to believe it, she knew it was the truth. Her power had already grown so much, who knew where it would end? If it would end? “And I don’t know what I’ll do. Not for sure. I know what I want, but…”
“Why hesitate?” A large hand landed on her shoulder. “You are worthier by far than any of these fool pretenders who still stand against you.” He gave her a quick grin. “After all you beat me, the only one more suitable.”
“Because it isn’t just about me.” She sighed, looking up at her brother through her messy red curls. “Not anymore. If I take the power, nothing will be the same again. I’ll have to leave everybody behind. Even the ones I love the most. Even…even Edwin. I wouldn’t be me anymore, not really. I’d be something else.”
Sarevok’s eyes narrowed. “And yet you still consider it. You haven’t ruled it out. Why, if it pains you so?”
“Two reasons.” Rini paused, trying to arrange her thoughts. It was oddly easy to speak with her brother about this, she found. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it with her other friends. She wasn’t sure it was right to burden them with it for one thing, and also she worried that they’d tell her what she wanted to hear. Sarevok wouldn’t try to shelter her from the truth, and he’d walked the same path she was walking now, for a time. “For one thing, if I don’t claim the power, then who will? Yaga Shura? Some of these other, even worse Bhaalspawn out there? Suppose they break the world because I’m scared?” She swallowed hard. “But there’s another reason too, more personal. More important. If I don’t claim the power, how can I protect Eddie? He’s in danger, the pointy-hatted old bearded Chosen of Mystra is coming for him and will do something horrible to him. If I do become a goddess, I’d be able to keep him safe, wouldn’t I?”
“You would give him up forever in order to save him?”
“Yes. In a heartbeat, if that’s what it takes. I just…I just hope there’ll be another way. Somehow. Even if I can’t think of one.” She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her suddenly blurry eyesight. “That’s not so wrong of me, is it? To hope?”
There was silence, and then the unexpected pressure of a large hand enfolding hers. “Tamoko never lost hope about me,” Her brother said, his voice a deep rumble. “Not until the very end, and perhaps not even then. You, little sister, would be a glorious goddess, but I say hold on to your hopes until you truly have no other choice.”
“I’ll try. Thanks.” She tried on a smile, and found it came nearly naturally. “Please don’t tell any of the others we talked about this? I…guess I may have to eventually, but I’d like to keep things normal for a while yet. To pretend this is just an upgraded version of the Nashkel Mines, and that we’ll celebrate together, every single one of us, with Eddie being all grumpy about having been named a Hero for the umpteenth time.”
“As you wish, but do not put it off forever. That could make it even worse.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
Light footfalls padded towards them at that point, and then there was Imoen, practically skidding around the corner with her pink hair dancing around her excited face. “Hey, you two!” She exclaimed. “You’ll never guess what I…why so serious?”
Rini was just wracking her mind trying to tell her sister and best friend something that would be evasive but not an actual lie, when Sarevok cleared his throat.
“I was merely describing my more interesting battle scars,” He said. “Many of them have quite the interesting story behind them.” He pointed at his chin, where there indeed was a small, round scar. “Would you like to hear about how I got this one?”
“I dunno,” Imoen said, looking a little doubtful. “Is it something rare and unusual, like…like being impaled by a fluffy unicorn that wouldn’t let you ride it because you weren’t a virgin?”
“No. I’ll leave the unicorns to you, little one.”
“What?! Rini! Tell him I’m not a…that I couldn’t…” Imoen’s cheeks were getting as pink as her hair by this point. “Just tell him!”
“Ooooh no!” The half-elf said, raising her hands in defense. “Not gonna get dragged into an argument about you and romance, Immy. Nope. It’s none of his business anyway.”
“Ha, that’s right!” Imoen said, sticking her tongue out at Sarevok who merely gave her a mild look. “And I’m a very worldly and jaded rogue, so there, and that’s all there is to it.” She put on what was probably intended to be a look of haughty disdain, but mostly made her look constipated. “Pfffrtt. Take that. Anyway, I was about to show you what I found. Come along, and you’ll see.”
She took off back along the winding corridor, walking just a little faster than normal, and the warrior and the bard followed close behind. It took Zaerini a minute or so to fully appreciate how deftly her brother had changed the subject, and by then they’d nearly reached a large bronze door at the end of the hallway. There was a regular, banging noise, coming from behind the closed door, and what sounded like muffled curses.
“I unlocked it already,” Imoen whispered. “I managed to be pretty quiet, so I don’t think she noticed me.”
“She?” Rini said. “Who’s in there?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t talk to her yet, I figured we’d want to that together. I just peeked through the keyhole. You’ll see.”
The heavy door was pulled open with some effort, mostly from Sarevok, and behind it lay a large and fairly unsettling bedroom. It was dominated by an enormous bed, round and covered with red sheets and a multitude of shiny satin pillows. There were mirrors on the ceiling above the bed, and there was a large lever with three different settings and a button next to it. The options available were ‘Mama’s Boy’, ‘Volcanic Eruption’ and ‘Inferno’, and Rini was somewhat reminded by Ust Natha, while simultaneously wondering if there would be actual lava involved. There certainly was lava present, flowing in channels around the edges of the room, presumably kept eternally hot by magic. A second door was at the left-hand side of the room, firmly closed.
“Hey you! Let me down!” The shout came from a stranger, a woman chained to the wall right next to the bed. She wasn’t a giant, but a human woman, somewhat worse for wear. She had short, blonde hair, now dirty and matted, and was wearing chainmail armor that tended more towards skimpy than practical. Certainly it left her entire midriff exposed. Large chains were affixed to heavy manacles around her wrists and ankles, as well as thick metal collar, and kept her mostly immobile. She growled in frustration and tried to yank herself forward, but immediately fell back again, crashing into the wall with a heavy ‘thump’.
So that’s what we heard.
“Are you deaf?!” The woman shouted. “Free me!”
“Well, excuse us,” Rini said, rolling her eyes briefly. “Clearly we’re not the rescuers you were hoping for, but we’re the ones you’ve got. Maybe you’d like us to leave you there until somebody better comes along?”
“No! I’m…look, it’s been a very bad time. Can you blame me?”
“No problem,” Imoen said with a friendly smile. “I guess I’d be grumpy too. I’ll see what I can do about those locks, ok? It’ll take a little while, so why don’t you tell us who you are in the meantime?”
“And anything you know about Yaga Shura’s private quarters,” Rini added. “If you know where he’d keep his hidden treasures, so much the better.”
“Looters eh?” The woman said as Imoen started working on the locks. “Fair enough. I’ll tell you what I know. My name is Varda, and I’m an adventurer. A while back I met some others in an inn, as you do, and it turned out one of them had a plan lined up for robbing this place blind.” She grimaced. “As you see, it didn’t end well. The regular giants were bad enough, but…then there was Yaga Shura.” Her face had gone a disturbing pale grey, and was clammy with sweat. “He was like something out of a nightmare. He slaughtered them all, as easily as a child might squish ants.”
“And not you?” Sarevok said, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Did you turn on your companions, perhaps?”
“No. I might have done, had I thought it’d spare me. I was scared shitless if you must know. But I didn’t. Yaga Shura captured me, his magic snared me just like that.”
“Why?” Rini asked. “Why would he kill the others and spare you?”
“I…I don’t know. He said it was ‘practice’. I don’t know what he wanted me for. He kept me here, but he never really did anything with me, said I was just a ‘placeholder’.” Varda blinked away angry tears. “I was lucky if he remembered to feed me. And then he up and disappeared, and this place went to the Nine Hells. Are you almost done?”
“There,” Imoen said, as the last tumbler of the lock clicked into place. She carefully eased the collar and manacles off and Varda slumped to ground with a sigh that sounded like a mixture of pain and relief. “Will you be ok now? This place is kinda crawling with giant zombies but we can’t go back yet.”
“I’ll take my chances,” The blonde woman said. “If I die, I die. It would still be better than being Yaga Shura’s pet.”
“First things first,” Rini said, holding up her hand. “You promised to give us information about this place. Do you know anything about Yaga Shura’s secrets?”
“Not much. He didn’t exactly talk to me, you know. But he didn’t care I was here either, treated me like furniture, so I saw a thing or two. There’s something in the next room over, something precious he was really careful with, but I don’t know what it was, I was stuck here so I never saw it. The door is locked though.”
Rini looked at the solid metal door. No handle, no lock, not even any door hinges that she could see. It didn’t look promising. “Anything else?” She asked.
“One more thing. You noticed the bed, right? The controls?”
“Hard not to. What about them?”
“They’re more than they seem. You should try them out, you’ll see.”
“Not with my brother and sister, no I won’t!”
“Not like that. Yaga Shura could activate a second system, somehow. I didn’t get a really good look at it, but it runs far more than the bed. It could do something useful for you. That’s all I can tell you. Now I’m getting out of here, hopefully in one piece, and don’t’ try to stop me.”
“Fair enough,” Rini nodded. “Good luck to you.”
The filthy and emaciated woman’s features softened marginally, almost making room for a smile. “Sure. You too.” She walked out the door, leaving behind three very puzzled Bhaalspawn and one giant bed.
-*-
“So, this is clearly an Esoteric Elder Sign,” Edwin said, eyeing the door in front of him. He folded his hands in the wide sleeves of his robes and nodded to himself. “Yes, it is evident. The shape of the magical seal, in the form of a seven-pointed star, is quite typical.”
“You know, I always thought it was perfectly obvious it was shaped like a tree,” Dekaras mused, trying hard not to let even a glimmer of amusement show in his eyes. This was an old point of contest between them, with neither willing to change his mind. He knew he probably shouldn’t be doing this, but it was too tempting not to. Besides, Edwin could do with a bit of distraction, annoyance had always been better for him than moping.
“What?! The upper points of the stars…”
“Branches.”
“And the lower point is clearly….”
“Roots.”
“Inconceivable! How could you possibly…”
Viconia cleared her throat. “Personally, I think it looks like a disemboweled man, his limbs splayed,” She said with an ominously sweet smile. “A future I’m perfectly willing to make come to pass, should the two of you prefer to carry on with this. Can it be opened or not?”
“Of course,” Dekaras said with a quick grin. “Edwin knows what to do, don’t you, Edwin?”
The wizard nodded. “It will take me a short while, but yes, it can be done. Normally one would require a wardstone to unravel the seal, but fortunately my own skills and knowledge of arcane lore will suffice to do so.” He flexed his fingers and ran them slowly along the seal, tracing the magical currents.
“Perhaps we might have a look around in the meantime,” Dekaras suggested to Viconia. “You never know, there might be something interesting to be found.” The room they were currently standing in seemed to be a study of sorts, with bookshelves along the walls, a writing desk covered with piles of paper and even a small safe. Well, small by giant standards, it was actually as tall as a tall man.
Minsc nodded sagely. “Boo says that a trail of papers can lead us to our prey just as well as a trail of footprints or droppings. Either way, we must chase the Evil Giant down, our noses quivering with anticipation!”
“I think both I and my nose would prefer a trail of papers in that case,” Dekaras said, turning to the safe. “But yes, your Boo is quite right. Perhaps you might quietly converse with him while we search, and determine whether he has further insights?”
“Minsc is always happy to help!”
Having successfully tuned out the large ranger’s mutterings to his hamster, the assassin busied himself with examining the safe, while Viconia started rifling through the papers on the desk. The lock might have seemed complex to one who didn’t know better. It didn’t have a keyhole per se, but a series of numbered buttons, clearly meant to be pressed in the correct order. And usually that’s a combination of four, non repeating. Let’s see if we can’t narrow it down a little. He took a certain pouch of finely ground grey powder out, and gently blew some across the buttons. Some of it settled on all of them, but on four particular buttons he could also see clear, and very large fingerprints. There. Now we should have only twenty-four permutations to choose from rather than ten thousand. Hm. Could it be? He swiftly pressed four buttons in turn, and the door gently swung open. 1-2-3-4. Honestly, don’t people even bother trying with these things? It takes all the fun out of it.
Inside the safe, he found only a box containing a very odd thing. It was a transparent sphere, clearly magical, about the size of a human head and quite empty. It was hard, and slick to the touch, but the magical field was…peculiar to say the least. It’s practically inert, but stable…and with a very long half-life, it would seem. I’d have thought it was a very small Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, but it’s both too solid and too lasting. He took another look at the box, which had ‘proto-type’ written on the side, but no, it was otherwise completely empty. Interesting. Well, it’s worth making note of, but otherwise it probably won’t be of any help right now.
“I found something,” Viconia said, holding up a paper. “It is a letter to Yaga-Shura, not signed.” She cleared her throat and read out loud. ‘It is time to make your move, the sooner the better. The greater bulk should fall easily into your hands, any that slip through your net will be picked up separately. Do not concern yourself with the others, we all have our parts to play for the great glory of Bhaal and they are where they should be, as must you be. Amkethran you know of already. Sendai and Abazigal consolidate their forces in their strongholds, and once all is ready the Five will sweep across the face of Toril, covering all the land in blood and fire. Enclosed you will find a list containing names of particular interest, those strong in the Blood. Learn it well. You’ve got to catch them all, if you wish to triumph.’
“And the list?” Dekaras asked.
“It is not here. The giant probably took it with him, but we can guess what names are on it, can’t we?”
“Regrettably so. However, it changes little.”
“How can you say that?” Edwin asked. “He wants to kill my Hellkitten!”
“Yes, I’m sure he does, and probably Imoen as well. But we already knew that, and we are already taking steps to prevent it. I’m more concerned with these other names mentioned, and with who sent the letter in the first place, but that is a matter for later. First, the giant’s heart, and then the giant himself. Speaking of which, how is that seal coming along?”
“All done now,” Edwin stated with a slightly smug smile. “A most elegant dispelling, if I say so myself. Observe, no flaking even of the inner arcane energies. It is perfectly safe. A clear 97% chance of survival.”
Dekaras nodded. “Well done,” He said. “Shall we see if we find anything else interesting in here then? Just be careful, because…”
At this, Minsc bounced to his feet. “Minsc and Boo will lead the charge, our sturdy hides and stalwart souls will keep our good companion safe! Just stay behind us, friends!” Before anybody had the time to protest, he landed a large foot square in the middle of the now unlocked door, kicking it so hard it flew wide open and nearly fell off its hinges. “MINSC AND BOO, GOOOO!”
As flames came roaring out of the open door and angry roars and growls filled the air, Dekaras just had time to reflect that this was yet one more of the many, many reasons he never wanted to set foot in Rasheman again.