In The Cards

If we seek to do good, and inadvertently cause great pain, is it then an act of good or evil we have committed? I suppose it can be either, but a good intent doesn’t make it less painful to the one betrayed.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

A cold wind blew through the dark corridor that lay beyond the large chessboard. The adventurers carefully moved forward, not knowing what they’d encounter next, but certain it would be something unpleasant. A few broken swords and rusty shields lay here and there, giving the impression of a violent battle fought long ago. So did the old bones that lay in sad heaps along the corridor, the mangled skeletons of long dead dwarves. Yeslick’s face was sorrowful as he passed them, but he said nothing except a brief and quietly murmured prayer.

“There is something unnatural here,” Jaheira suddenly said, frowning. “I can sense it. Something cold. Can you not feel it?”

Zaerini tried to concentrate. It was cold, she noticed, colder than it had been a mere few moments ago. Far in the distance she could suddenly hear sounds. The screams and moans of dying people. Steel upon steel, as if a great battle was being fought. And weeping. Above all, there was the sound of weeping. Quiet sobs, low wails, and then heartrending weeping as if somebody had just had their heart torn asunder. It made the half-elf shiver, and not just from the cold either.

“L-look,” Khalid said. “There is mist f-forming, over there in the c-corner.” And so it was. The drifting tendrils of mist twined together, reared up into a swirling pillar, and then they took form, assuming a recognizable shape. A dwarf it was, an old dwarf in bloody and dented battle-gear, his eyes dark hollows of utter despair. It was the ghost of Durlag Trollkiller.

“You have come quite far…” the ghost sighed. “Not many live to speak...less live to leave.”

“Oh, is that so?” Edwin asked. “I really wonder why. Now let me think…could it possibly have something to do with all the lethal traps that some unthinking and inhospitable person has littered the place with?”

The ghost moaned quietly again. “You are far from done...I hold surprises yet...seek direction in this place...when you understand the path...when you understand the course...you will be able to go on...you must be worthy to face what comes...there is evil here not built within...you must expel the new invaders...”

“Oh, really?” Rini said, not in a particularly friendly voice. “So after trying to kill us and making us suffer through a large number of awful, awful jokes, you want us to help you out, no doubt out of the goodness of our hearts and expecting nothing in return. Tell me, how do we know you’re even the real thing and not another doppelganger? And tell my why we should help you fight these ‘invaders’ and not just exorcise your sorry transparent butt out of here?”

The ghost bowed its head, as if in shame. “You…are understandably suspicious,” it said. “Am I...Durlag? You have cause to wonder...you have seen traps and illusions and phantoms...but I…yes, I was Durlag. I cannot pass...to whatever fate the dark veil holds...this place...this place is my fear...my anger...his torment. I am a…shade. A memory…of ancient sorrow. You wish to conquer this place? You will have to understand what created it...remember well what you have already seen... three paths lead away...all must be taken...”

“Spirit of my distant kinsman,” Yeslick said, “Why do ye still haunt this place? Why can ye find no peace?”

Durlag’s ghost was silent for a moment, and when it spoke again its voice was even more hollow and distant than before. “Betrayal…,” it said. “Built into the very walls…. betrayal, fear and anger…feeding each other endlessly, building me a cage…I cannot rest as long as the truth is mine alone to bear…I need you…I need you to see…to learn for yourselves the cause and consequence of betrayal…then tell me and I shall aid you…I shall open the way.”

“All right,” Rini said. “We’ll see what we can do. But only since you promise to help us in return, and if one of my friends gets killed in one of your infernal traps I’m using your ectoplasm to blow my nose.”

The ghost looked slightly embarrassed. “Be careful…in the room with the rune carpet,” it said. “Come to think…of it…be careful everywhere. It’s been…a long time…I can’t remember where all the traps are…myself.”

“Wonderful. I so like helpful people with valuable information to offer. Pity I hardly ever seem to meet any.”

The corridor divided into several directions, and one of the paths led across a river of molten lava into a mostly empty room with broken marble pillars lying on the floor where they had fallen centuries earlier. A few giant spiders had taken up residence among them, weaving their nets in complicated patterns between them. Once all the arachnids were dead the adventurers also noticed just how deep and seemingly bottomless the pit in the center of the floor was.

“I wonder what this was?” Jaheira said. “Perhaps an old well…”

“I wonder how deep it is,” Edwin said, his voice very curious. “Let’s see what happens if I do this…” He promptly dropped a pebble down the pit before anybody had the time to stop him. It bounced along the jagged stonewalls, the echoes loud enough to raise the dead. Then there were a few moments of deep, ominous silence.”

”Are you insane?” Jaheira hissed. “What were you thinking? We have no idea what is down there.”

“Hmpf,” Edwin said, “who do you think you are? My keeper?”

“No, fortunately not,” the druid said as she gave him a furious glare. “If I were, I think I would probably have killed you long ago, rather than suffer the mental agony of trying to keep you from risking your foolish neck.”

“You obviously understand nothing about the workings of the scientific and curious mind, which is not surprising in somebody with the mental agility of a dead slug…” Edwin suddenly interrupted himself as another sound rose up out of the pit. Laughter. Deep, evil, chuckling laughter. “Ah…,” he said, “Perhaps we could change the topic of conversation now. (To just about anything else rather than this one.)”

“Look at that,” Imoen suddenly said, pointing at something over in a corner. “Is that a statue?” It was a large stone shape, vaguely humanoid in form, and as the adventurers approached it spoke, its voice deep and gravely.

Questions have I for you. None but kin of clan may pass. State your knowledge of the history. Answer true and the way is clear; answer false and feel the sorrow. There is no second chance, neither for true nor false. Do you wish to answer now?

Yeslick nodded. “I am kin,” he said. “Pose your questions, golem.”

The creature nodded, red light glinting in its eyes as it spoke again. If you count Durlag, son of Bolhur ‘Thunderaxe,’ as your kin, you will know well the family that built this place. The mother of the sons, the matron of the clan: what is her name?

“Oh, that’s easy!” Imoen exclaimed. “It’s Islanne. We met her above you know, she was really sad.”

The golem nodded again. Your answer satisfies. Another question remains. Durlag, builder of the home, founder of the clan, had a name not from his father but his own deeds. The tower was built with the fortunes of hordes, but the last name of Durlag came from the fortune of battle. With axe and fire he cleansed the land of beasts he loved to fight, when axe alone would not suffice. I ask the second name of Durlag.

“Trollkiller,” Yeslick said. “All know that, who know the name of Durlag, he who was once clanless but built a clan of his own, only to lose it again.”

Once again the golem nodded. Your answer satisfies. A question remains. The father of this place formed the clan that fell in times of treachery. False faces claimed the future, and clanless became Durlag. This he shared with his own father, a wanderer that lived by the strength of his weapon. The second name of Bolhur is what I ask you. Sense most common is all you need for this answer.

“Well, duh!” Rini impatiently said. “You only just told us that answer yourself. It was ‘Thunderaxe’. Try something challenging, why don’t you?”

For a moment the golem almost seemed to smile. Your wish shall be granted, it said. Your answer satisfies. Here is the key to what you need. Here is the secret for what comes. The bones will walk where flesh cannot. The ward will walk the bones. Then it closed its eyes once more, as the adventurers felt a powerful teleport spell tugging at them, sweeping them away to another room entirely.

Zaerini blinked and looked about herself. She was standing with her friends in a round cave, with a golden star painted on the floor, marking all the directions of the compass. Four stone statues stood as silent sentinels in the north, south, east and west respectively. One of them resembled Durlag himself. Another was of a younger dwarf, one more of a human man, and the last was of a snarling doppleganger.

“Isn’t something very important missing here?” Edwin said.

“Like what?”

“A door.”

The bard had to agree with that. There were no doors or windows anywhere, just smooth rock surrounding them everywhere. “Durlag and his games,” she said, gritting her teeth. “And of course it never occurred to him to warn us of this place.”

“No secret door either,” a worried-looking Imoen said. “Least not that I can find.”

Yeslick walked over to the four statues, watching the doppleganger one curiously. “Very well crafted,” he said. “They look almost alive.” He reached out to touch the doppleganger, and then took a surprised step backwards as it opened its mouth and spoke. It began with usssss...and the mastersss...The tentacled ones directed and we assssaulted quietly with cover of night. We took of the weaker firssst, hiding amidsst the childrrren. None sssaw the arrival, none noticed the insssurrgence, and none sssurvived the final rissse. When Durlag realizzzed the deception it was tooo late! His own family sssought his life, and he ssslaughtered their falssse facessss. It began with usss, from the wessst.

“Whoa!” Imoen exclaimed. “Seriously creepy. Let’s see what’s up with the other ones!”

The second statue was that of a dwarf not Durlag. It too spoke as it was approached. This is not my face. The invaders came and took my true face, burying it with my body and my comrades. I was among the last, but not the very last, and I saw the horror to come. My child rose against me, though it was no longer my child. It wore her face, but I knew her to be dead. The doppelgangers came from within, and we could not fight ourselves. Better to die than to kill ourselves. What would be left of a man that has had to kill his family...and himself? I was among the last, but not the very last.

“How horrible,” Rini said, shuddering. “Imagine that, being forced to kill something that resembled your own child, even as it was trying to kill you. To be betrayed by your own family and loved ones would be enough to break anybody’s heart, I’d say.”

Edwin stared at the statue, looking slightly ill, his dark eyes wide and haunted. “Yes…,” he said. “Yes…it…. it probably would. And yet…sometimes we have no choice but to do that which…which we loathe.”

“Perhaps. But it’s still awful.”

The wizard didn’t answer that, and he turned away towards the third statue, the one of a human man holding a large hammer. We were hired after the battles were done, the statue said. . Durlag called upon us to make his visions true. We did our best, but his visions grew darker and soon we could not see. We waded through his fallen, and we waded through his gold. Near the end we feared for our lives, though not as much as he did. I was never truly sure whether he wished to keep the intruders out, or himself in. Both, I'll wager. We were hired after the battles were done, and we did our best.

“Ah,” Yeslick said. “This would be one of the builders that helped Durlag build the traps in the Tower, then. Not a job I would care for meself, but there you have it.”

I suppose Durlag was afraid, Rini thought. He had good reason to be. I just wish he hadn’t reacted by trying to kill anybody whom he suspected of being even a remote threat. Under the circumstances I suppose it’s an understandable reaction, but that doesn’t mean I have to appreciate those nasty traps. “Just one more,” she said out loud. “Let’s see what Durlag himself has to say:”

The statue of Durlag stirred as she approached it, its face just as sad as that of the ghost outside. With me it ended. Speak now of my troubles, to show you have learnt. From where did my pain come? Where did my pain stab home? Where did my pain take root? Where dost my pain reside? Speak and show that you understand.

A riddle game then, the bard thought. He seems to like those. Pity we don’t have a halfling with us, they’re usually good at riddles, but we’ll just have to make do. She also had a feeling that she wouldn’t have long to think about an answer, but the three first statues had provided her with clues enough. The doppelgangers came from the west, they said, and they started this…then it was the fight in the Tower, which is represented by the dwarf, and according to the compass on the floor he’s in the south. That would be when the pain ‘stabbed home’. Poor thing. Then it was the trap builders, who helped the pain ‘take root’ and finally Durlag himself. It is in him that the pain resides. No wonder his ghost seems half mad, having to live with memories like these. Or exist, or whatever he does.

“From the west it came,” she said, “and then the south. The east held it next, and now it rests in the north.”

The statue of Durlag bowed its head. You have learned a little. You may yet survive.

Once again the world twisted and swirled around her as the teleportation spell grabbed hold of her, and then she was suddenly standing in front of Durlag’s ghost rather than his statue. There was the same dull despair in the eyes of the ghost as in those of the statue, cold and miserable, filled with pain and self-loathing. Yet when the ghost spoke there was the faintest glimmer of hope in his voice. You have found the room that gives direction, but are not done yet...The way is not yet clear...understand the paths that lead away...and you will return...

Yes, Zaerini thought. Somehow I have a feeling that we will. And hopefully we’ll get through all of this ‘understanding’ business without literally breaking down like you did. Hopefully.