Apologies for my absence, as it turned out I had to go through surgery. I'm fine now and hopefully the next chapter won't take as long.
Throne Of Bhaal 81 – Identity
How do we define what makes a person uniquely them? Their body? Their mind, their knowledge or skills? Something else? Is there a grey area where Self ends and Other begins?
Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’
“That,” Sarevok declared, “was quite possibly as unpleasant as dying. It felt like having my insides yanked out of me through my nose. Little sister, in the future, do not steal my toys or I will give you a paddling.”
“It wasn’t a toy, and I didn’t steal it! I only borrowed your fighting skills, and I’m sorry I didn’t have time to ask, but I was trying to keep us all alive! You know I couldn’t have won that duel otherwise.”
“Hmpf. Well, I suppose this proves once and for all who the superior warrior is, and who would have won that fight back in Baldur’s Gate if not for somebody cheating…”
“Not this again. I’m not a warrior at all and you know it! Besides, Vadrak isn’t ranting at me, are you Vadrak?”
Dekaras gave Zaerini a level look that suddenly made her feel as if she were approximately three feet tall and had a runny nose to boot.
“I appreciate that desperate times call for desperate measures,” He said. “Nevertheless, unless a similar life or death scenario should once again occur, with similar pressing concerns for time preventing you from asking and getting explicit and indeed enthusiastic consent, I kindly thank you not to repeat this little experiment.”
“Um. Right. Absolutely. Word of honour.” Boy, was I wrong. It’s just that he rants quietly.
A dry cackle mercifully interrupted and she was quite glad to hear Nevaziah’s voice. “Well, that settles that, doesn’t it? My minions have conquered, and I win.”
“Fair enough,” The Spectator said, bobbing up and down while simultaneously rolling all of his many eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you win, whatever. Go knock yourselves out with Sendai or whatever lies behind this next door behind me. It’s not as if I haven’t got better things to do.” He suddenly grinned, showing many shark like teeth. “I wonder, should I warn you about what Sendai and her special friends have been up to? Nah. It’ll be more fun this way. Toodles!” With that, he drifted off, chuckling to himself.
“Peculiar fellow,” Nevaziah muttered to himself, absently scratching his wizened scalp. “Now, where was I going again?”
“Er…to kill Sendai perhaps, Master?” Rini tried.
“Eh? What? No, no, I don’t think so. Who’s Sendai? Why would I kill her? And where did my hat go?”
“Do not fret, Master,” Dekaras interrupted. “In fact, why not leave this trifling matter to your trusted minions? I’m certain you have weightier matters to contend with.”
“Quite right, Number One,” The lich said with a firm nod that made something rattle loose deep inside him. “You deal with this…Sendai person, and Ducky and I will return to what we were doing. The Dodecahedron won’t summon itself, you know!” With a small wave of his toy duck, the ancient lich quickly chanted a spell and disappeared in a flurry of purple sparks.
“What was that all about?” Edwin protested. “We could have made further use of him!”
“He had forgotten all about Sendai already,” Dekaras said. “Would you have liked to risk him forgetting who we were – or remembering one of us in particular?”
“Er. Perhaps it is for the best.”
“And with that, I say we carry on,” Viconia said as she moved closer to door the Spectator had been guarding, kicking a few Drow corpses out of the way as she did so. “I dislike this mention of ‘special friends’ but there is no telling who or what they might be.”
“You’re right,” Rini agreed. “Whatever they are, we’d better move on before more Drow turn up. At least the Geas killed all these guys so quickly they didn’t get to sound an alarm.”
Onwards they walked, through a straight but fairly narrow stone corridor. A few smaller rooms were empty of life, but there were oddities there all the same. Metal crates lined the walls, floor to ceiling, so clearly this was storage area.
“Hey!” Imoen said. “Let’s have a peek, there could be treasure!”
“In an unguarded place such as this I highly doubt it,” Viconia said with a brief shake of her head.
“Aw, don’t be a spoilsport! I’m gonna check it out, you never know.”
“Just remember your basics,” Dekaras said. “Unguarded or not, they could still be trapped.”
“Sure thing! And if there’s anything good I’ve got first dibs.” She carefully looked one of the crates over. “Nope, nothing here. Doesn’t even seem to be locked. Now let’s see…huh? Well, that’s boring.”
“What’s boring?” Rini asked.
“Nothing good in here, just a bunch of old clothes. Not even fancy dresses or anything like that.”
True enough, as the bard walked closer to have a look for herself, she saw that her friend was quite right. The crate was stuffed full of clothes, plain and simple ones. “For their soldiers maybe?” She suggested. “Or their slaves?”
“They are not of Drow make,” Viconia said as she held up a small shirt. “And this was made for no soldier.”
A nasty, slithering feeling twisted around the half-elf’s stomach as she took a closer look. The shirt had an embroidered fluffy lamb neatly stitched onto it with loving attention. “The villages…” She said. “Some of the villages we came across all the people were dead. But in some…they were just gone, remember?” She opened another crate. Shoes, dozens of them, jumbled together.
“It may well be,” Dekaras said in a rather bleak voice, “That the dead were the lucky ones.”
“Oh, say it is not so!” Minsc protested, his eyes blank with tears. “Will even the mighty sword and teeth of Minsc and Boo be in vain?”
“We don’t know for sure yet,” Rini said, trying to sound more hopeful than she actually felt. “But I’ve got a feeling we’re getting close to Sendai now, so let’s move even more carefully than before since we’ve no idea what we’re up against. Eddie, I’ve got at least one invisibility spell that’ll cover us all, do you have any spare for when that runs out?”
“One,” Her lover replied. “After that, only a regular one-person spell.”
“That’ll have to do. Ok gang, let’s huddle, I don’t want to miss anyone and waste the spell.” They all pressed in close together, and she cast the spell, taking particular care to place it correctly. Eventually she felt it settle and shimmer around all of them like a glittering cloak and knew that while they could still see each other they should now be cloaked from sight.
“And remember,” Dekaras said, “It will not mask sound. I suggest silence from now on. In fact, unless you have any objections, I will move ahead and scout the way.”
“All right but be careful. Sendai is supposed to be really powerful after all, so don’t take any unnecessary risks, just come back to us if you see anybody.”
“As you wish. But you should know I never take unnecessary risks.”
“Try to avoid the necessary ones as well then!”
She just caught him giving her a slight slanted smile as he slipped around the corner without a further word, and then she focused on Edwin’s disgruntled mutterings about the very loose definitions of the word ‘risks’ potentially applied by certain people. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t very long before the assassin returned, perhaps a quarter of an hour or so, and he looked none the worse for wear.
“There is an antechamber of sorts up ahead,” He reported. “There is another closed door behind it, and a Drow woman who seems to be on guard.”
“Alone?” Viconia interrupted in a sharp voice. “I do not like the sound of that.”
“Well, she seemed to be alone, and it wasn’t that large of a room. I doubt I missed anybody else. I do however agree with you, it could well mean she’s a powerful enough subordinate that she needs no guards.”
“Could she be Sendai herself?” Imoen asked.
“Impossible to say, none of us know what Sendai looks like after all. I did notice that she seemed unusually disheveled and sickly for a Drow female. She kept mumbling to herself, and scratching at her neck under the hood of her cloak. I think she may not be in her right mind.”
“It could be the Bhaaltaint,” Rini mused. “Of course, we run into quite a few non Bhaalspawn crazy people too. I guess there’s no avoiding her?”
“None, unless there are any secret passages that I missed this is the only route ahead and I doubt this spell could cover all of us well enough to sneak past.”
“Nothing for it then. Sendai or not, let’s make sure we’re fully prepared for a fight, but let’s not spend all our spells just yet. She could be just some random outcast after all. And let’s try to stick with spells that’ll either last long enough to get there before they run out or that can be done quietly, I’d like to take advantage of the invisibility and take her by surprise if we can.”
A few minutes later the group had finished their preparations. They moved ahead as cautiously and quietly as they could, some of them more successfully than others and eventually they reached the antechamber in question. The walls were rough stone, the room bare and cold. It didn’t seem like a place that had any value or worth, more like a place of transition. There was a single tall but narrow door at the other side of the room, made from adamantium that glittered coolly purple. And there was the lone Drow woman, standing close to the door. She wore a white cloak with a deep hood that obscured her face as she stood with hunched shoulders, fiddling absently with her fingers and she was whispering something in a quiet voice. Rini tried to make the words out but couldn’t. Dekaras had been right, she thought. The woman did look sickly, thin and frail, and the skin on her hands looked odd as well. Drow didn’t all look the same of course, some had skin that was pretty much pure black, others more of a dark grey, sometimes with undertones of blue or purple. This woman’s colour was a blotchy, pale grey though, one the bard couldn’t remember seeing before. She narrowed her eyes, looking more closely, and focused on the twitching fingers. Ragged, sharp nails were digging into the flesh of other hand, digging grooves and furrows right along the cuticles. She swallowed hard as she saw one nail flapping loose, back and forth, displaying raw and bleeding flesh beneath.
Yes, severe lack of sanity points. Bhaalspawn or not though?
“Good,” The woman suddenly said in a louder voice than before. She still didn’t look up from her twitching hands though. “I greet you and welcome you, Child of Bhaal.”
So much for the stealthy approach. And would it kill them to learn my actual name? Well, maybe, just maybe, she isn’t hostile. You never know. Maybe Sendai tortured her, and she’d be happy to help us out.
“You claim to know me,” She responded, stepping closer. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same. Are you Sendai?”
The woman chuckled, a dry, rasping sound like a clutter of dead leaves blown across the stone floor of a tomb and she turned towards the group. “An excellent question,” She said. “I could have been, but no. You may refer to me as Diyatha, handmaiden to Her Holiness Mistress Sendai.”
Right. The happy to help us out option seems way more unlikely by the second.
“That’s nice,” Rini said, trying to decide if her sword, her bow or her spells would be the best option should it come to a fight. “Does she know you’re here?”
“Of course. She sent me to welcome you, after all. She so longs to get to know you better, you and all your friends. She was quite surprised to see you proceed this far, perhaps even impressed, but this is as far as it goes, I’m afraid.” Diyatha raised her head, and Rini tried to catch a glimpse of her face underneath the white hood. She could see very little, only a hint of chin and smiling mouth, but she thought the skin looked just as unhealthy as that of the hands. “Sendai would know you, Child of Bhaal, and I am Her eyes and Her voice. Face me!” Enchanted shields flared up around the hunched woman, strong magic to contrast with her frail appearance and there was a loud rumbling sound as the very ground shook and heaved and rocks and gravel started tumbling down from above. With a quick curse Zaerini jumped aside just as a large crack formed where she had stood only moments before. Then she turned around and saw that the earthquake wasn’t the only problem.
Sarevok and Minsc had been the first to move, charging towards Diyatha with their swords drawn. Before they could reach her, the lone woman raised her hands and a lattice of stone shot out of the ground, forming a protective cage around her, one that was covered with nasty stone spikes to boot. Both warriors slammed straight into it before they could halt themselves, and were thrown to the ground by the impact. Worse, the cage was large enough that it was obviously impossible for their weapons to reach Diyatha as she stood in the middle of it.
Well, spells or ranged weapons should still be able to get her. We’ll just have to…
The ground shook again, hard enough that the half-elf nearly lost her footing. Two enormous earth elementals emerged from the rock, each one twice as tall and wide as a large man. Mostly flat skulls sat directly on their broad shoulders, and triangular red eyes glowed an angry red from otherwise blank and featureless faces. Both of them charged, each footfall like a clash of thunder, and at the same time Diyatha quickly chanted another spell.
How can she cast so much so quickly?! It doesn’t seem possible.
She felt the powerful magical field of this spell narrowly pass her by, but it did strike Edwin and Dekaras who had been on her right side. Both men shot into the air as quickly as if they’d been falling from a great height and slammed into the ceiling where they stuck as if they’d been glued onto it. It was kind of hard to tell from this distance, but they both looked a little dazed from the impact. At least they’d narrowly avoided being impaled on the many stalactites lining the ceiling.
“Gravity reversal!” Edwin shouted as he desperately tried and failed to return to the ground. “We won’t get down until it wears off!”
Great. Can this possibly get any worse I wonder?
At that moment Zaerini had to dodge one of the large elementals before her head got squished by its enormous boulder of a fist. As she did, she saw something else moving towards her out of the corner of her eye. Diyatha had summoned an actual boulder this time, a large globe of stone perhaps two metres across and as smooth as a child’s marble. With a flick of her finger she set it in motion, and it started rolling and spinning wildly across the floor, careening towards the party. Then there was another, and another, each one enough to severely injure or perhaps even kill whoever unlucky enough to be struck by it.
Yes. Yes, it could get worse.
Minsc had got to his feet by now and had tackled the elemental menacing her. “BAD ROCK!” The large man shouted. “No touching Minsc’s Witch!” He rammed the elemental shoulder first with all his might, and though he didn’t make it fall he at least made it sway and turn towards him. That gave Rini the time and space needed to jump out of the way of two boulders speeding towards her from opposite directions. She just barely managed to avoid getting flattened into a red paste and the boulders struck each other instead with a resounding bang before bouncing off again. Unfortunately, all of the chaos meant there was very little time for her to do anything else but avoid deadly objects. Sarevok was struggling with the stone lattice protecting Diyatha, but so far even his great strength was in vain. A large fireball slammed into the upper half of the cage, so evidently Edwin wasn’t about to let a minor detail like being upside-down keep him out of the action. It didn’t break the cage, but it did rattle it and momentarily break Diyatha’s concentration causing her to lose control of one spell. There was a small ‘thunk’ followed by a ‘crack’ as a stone spider tumbled down from the ceiling and was smashed into gravel against the hard ground. Clearly that had been a ‘Flesh To Stone’ that just went awry.
At least it wasn’t one of us. But how to get to her?
Edwin was still launching spells at the cage, falling chunks of ice this time and Rini thought she understood what he was trying to do. If the cage got brittle enough it should eventually be possible to break it, but they’d have to survive both Diyatha’s spells and the rocks and elementals until they could get to her.
Elementals first.
She had a few seconds to spare as one of the elementals was still facing Minsc and the second was chasing after Viconia and Imoen. It was enough for a quick spell. Part of floor was covered with thick globules of slippery grease and Minsc’s golem skidded across it, thick arms flailing comically until it smashed into the wall and fell to the ground with a crash that made the floor shake once again. It was enough for the berserker to replace his sword with a spare weapon, an enchanted Warhammer sturdy enough to pulverize the elemental’s head until it resembled nothing so much as broken pottery. The second elemental was chasing Imoen who was nimbly skipping and vaulting across the floor, avoiding large fists and chaotic boulders. This gave Viconia enough time to cast a couple of spells of her own. The Drow priestess seemed to grow in stature, a nimbus of flickering shadows surrounding her as she called upon the might of her goddess. Her mace struck the second elemental, again and again, with strength and skill far exceeding her normal limits, and the large creature staggered backwards, tiny cracks beginning to form on its surface. It was still on the move though, and still a clear threat. However, it hadn’t noticed what was happening behind it. Having clearly decided that he wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot at Diyatha through her protections, Dekaras had been painstakingly working at climbing up, or rather down, one of the large stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Now he was close enough that he could launch himself at the elemental’s head where he managed to prevent himself from being dragged into the air again by wrapping his legs around what little neck it had. He was digging his fingers hard into the glowing red eye sockets, and the elemental screamed, a creaking inhuman groan. It swung its large fists blindly, trying to dislodge its foe but Imoen took a flying leap of her own and clutched its arm. While she wasn’t very heavy, it was enough to weigh it down. All these distractions gave Viconia the opportunity for the perfect blow, straight into the cracks already formed. The elemental fell apart into two halves and moved no more. With a brief curse the assassin floated into the air again as the broken elemental wasn’t heavy enough to anchor him any longer, and only Imoen clinging onto his waist with both arms was enough to keep him from going all the way to the ceiling. At least this had the lucky side effect of dragging both of them just high enough up that they were out of reach of the spinning boulders. Rini wasn’t so lucky, but now that the elementals were out of the way it was easier to dodge the boulders than it had been, and that gave her some time to attack. She wasn’t enough of an archer that she fancied her chances of hitting Diyatha through the complicated lattice of the stone cage, but magic missiles were quick enough to cast and would find their way through the obstacles. She harassed the other woman as much as she could to keep her from casting further spells and to give her friends time to go on the offensive. Edwin had been keeping his own barrage up, alternating fire, ice and pure force, and it was finally beginning to have an effect. The stone cage was buckling, bending, and finally broke.
“Undermaster!” The wizard shouted. “That spell gives her innate abilities that are all bound to the earth through an arcane link, get her off the ground!”
Sarevok grinned broadly, his golden eyes burning eagerly. “My pleasure,” He boomed. Before Diyatha could get another spell off, the tall man already had her by the throat, lifting her bodily off the ground until she hung there helplessly, gagging and choking. The spinning boulders slowed down, bounced aimlessly off the walls a few more times, and then came to a complete stop. Diyatha clutched and clawed in vain at the mailed fist choking the life out of her, until there was a final, nasty crack and her neck snapped. Her lifeless body tumbled to the ground, and as it did the gravity reversal spell ended as well. Imoen and Dekaras dropped to the ground more or less gracefully, rolling and getting to their feet. Edwin dropped like a sack of potatoes with a shocked yell. Fortunately Minsc managed to catch him and set him down safely. For a moment all was silent other than the sound of seven people’s labored breathing.
“Is everyone ok?” Rini anxiously asked.
“No serious injuries,” Viconia replied having given everyone a quick examination. “Things could have gone much worse. If this was merely one of Sendai’s underlings, we had better prepare for a truly bloody battle ahead.”
“Let’s have a closer look at this one and see what we were dealing with,” Sarevok said. He bent over Diyatha’s broken corpse and pulled the hood of her white cloak back.
“Oh, yuck,” Imoen said as she scrunched her nose up until she looked rather like an apprehensive bunny. “That’s gross.”
Rini couldn’t help but agree. The skin on Diyatha’s face was just as loose and flaking as that on her hands, as if it was in the process of simply melting off her flesh and bones. Here and there trails of slow dark blood and viscous pus oozed out through the cracks. “Weird,” She said. “She looks like a corpse, but she didn’t seem like an undead.” A sudden nasty thought struck her. “Vic? She doesn’t have anything contagious, does she?”
Viconia closed her eyes for a moment, spreading her hands into the air some distance above the corpse. “No,” She said with a relieved exhalation. “Whatever this is, it’s no communicable disease. I wonder what…”
“Um guys?” Imoen piped up. “Are we sure, I mean, really sure she’s actually all the way dead?”
“Please,” Sarevok scoffed. “I should think I’ve killed enough people to be able to tell the difference. Besides, just look at her! Her neck is twisted enough she’s practically staring at her own back.”
“Yeah, I know, but…I just saw something move inside her cloak.”
The group fell silent again, all of them backing off a little as they cautiously observed the corpse. At first, nothing happened. Then, there was a brief twitch beneath the folds of Diyatha’s cloak, close by her neck and the base of her skull. Before anybody had the time to reach, the cloak burst open, and a…a Thing burst out amidst scattering chunks of disintegrating flesh and splintered bone. The Thing was perhaps the size of a saucer, and looked a little bit like a large tick, grey, swollen and bloated with things best not contemplated too closely. It had bulging glassy eyes, and a round gaping mouth, perfect for sucking. Segmented legs flailed wildly as it leapt into the air and into one of the cracks in the ground that Diyatha’s earthquake spell had caused, slithering out of sight and out of reach.
“What,” Rini finally said, breaking the stunned silene, “In the Abyss was that?”
“Ceremorphosis,” Viconia replied in a toneless voice. “The process by which…”
“Ah, I know this!” Edwin eagerly interrupted. “I remember studying it in the past. It is the process by which an illithid tadpole attaches itself to a live victim, gradually eating away at its brain matter and replacing it until a fully formed illithid is formed from the victim. Curiously enough, they may also absorb the memories of the host, and even share them with the colony and the Elder Brain. It…” He suddenly fell silent as he realized the implications. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Rini said, not quite able to sound as encouraging as she’d hoped. “That means there are mindflayers up ahead. Plus, since that thing got away, they now already know all Diyatha saw of us, and probably so does Sendai. This day just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?”
And yes, not good news at all, and it will be very relevant in the next segment of the dungeon...
