“Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war.”
To say that my mental state had been in flux would be something of an understatement. I was a stiff breeze away from a full on breakdown. But I didn’t have time to indulge in madness. We had work to do and a fort to retake. So I did what I could. I took the part of me that was terrified and I shoved it into a little ball and walled it off in my mind.
In my mind, as I shoved the other me into its little cell, I spoke to it. “We are not in danger. We are the danger! A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of us? No. we are the one who knocks!”
Back in the real world, a voice next to me spoke. “You’re goddamn right.”
Slowly, I turned to face the sound of the voice. I knew he wasn’t there, but still he was. “Heisenberg,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m just here to help you do what needs to be done. You should prepare your spells.”
“Yeah, I know.” So Heisenberg was the little devil on my shoulder. Or was he the angel? I don’t know anymore. I’m not sure I want to know.
I began studying my spellbook, locking into my mind every spell for combat that I could. I started with the easiest ones, the ones I call “Level 1” spells. All spells can be classified by their power level, the school of magic they fall under, but I find it easiest to classify spells by how many pages in my spellbook they take up. It’s a bit simplistic, but it works well enough.
As I began reviewing my strongest spells, those that take up four pages each, Heisenberg spoke up. “You and I both know you have a spell that can make sure you get everyone home safely. Prepare it.”
“That magic is evil,” I protested. “I only learned it for dire circumstances.”
“Is this not dire enough for you?”
Dammit. He was right. “Fine. Today we play hard ball.”
“Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war.”
I heard another voice. “One of the things covert operatives have to give up is the idea of a fair fight. Spies aren’t trained to fight fair. Spies are trained to win.” For an empty room, this place sure was getting crowded. I turned to face the other advisor, Michael Westen.
“This isn’t about fair,” I said. “This is about doing something unsavory because it is necessary.” He nodded approvingly.
“Demons run, but count the cost
The battle’s won, but the child is lost
When a good man goes to war.”
“You have someone to protect,” a third voice said. “But will they need protection from you, once you start down this road?” Dexter effing Morgan. Now there were three. But which was the angel, which was the devil and which was the monster? Were these more than just hallucinated advisors? Were they representing the paths before me? Were they who I might become?
“I hope not,” was all I could respond. Then they were gone. For now, at least.
But for today’s battle, the choice had been made. I would turn their strength against them, and would make it even more than what they had used on us in the process. All it would cost me was a bit of my life’s blood and use of some black magic. Today, a good man was going to war. However, would I still be a good man tomorrow?
If it meant destroying the ogres and preventing what had happened to people at the Graul’s farm from happening again, I could live with the risk. It was the senseless brutality of it all that got to me. I mean, I understand torturing someone to gain information. I don’t believe it works, but at least there’s a goal I can relate to. But this was something more. It was evil. Torture for torture’s sake. If I had to commit a genocide so thorough that ogres became nothing more than a legend in this part of the world to prevent it from happening again, then maybe that would be okay.
That might be a little extreme. Even in my fear and anger, I couldn’t hold the entire species accountable for the acts of some. But we were going to slaughter all of those that had been a party to the assault on Fort Rannick. Their culpability was certain. We would show them what happens to those who harm the innocent. Not torture. They would be killed, their bones would be ground to dust then scattered to the four winds so that it would take an act of a legendary cleric or a deity to bring them back, and they would be no more. Harming the innocent would mean being ended. That wasn’t monstrous. It was just something that had to be done.
I wish I could allow someone else to do this work, but I was passing this judgment, so it falls to me to at least be a party to holding the executioner’s axe. It’s been said that if you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.
But why was I passing the judgment? Why did I feel like it was my responsibility? Noblesse Oblige? Was that it? Because I had been taken into a noble family, did I feel like I had a responsibility to protect those who were below me in social rank? I don’t know. That doesn’t feel like it fits. I’m not a noble knight obliged to protect the peasants, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a part of Aurora’s motivation.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a wizard. I have the power to make a change, so I’m obligated to make a change? That’s not who I was before. Sure, I would throw a few bucks the Salvation Army’s way every year at Christmas, but I could have done more, certainly with less effort than what I was doing now required. Have I grown up? Have I taken it as my responsibility to change things in front of me?
I don’t know. It seems more likely that I’m simply doing it because by removing the monsters before me, I would be able to sleep better tomorrow than I had today. It’s a simple motivation and it fits everything I know about myself. Alucard believed that it takes a man to slay a monster, so if I must be a man and slay the monsters that keep me up at night, then so be it.
It’s either that or go back to snuggling with my security blankie, and I haven’t done that since I was four. Still, I worry. “Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger.” Am I a toad with stripes? Or am I a tiger who is just learning to roar?
Whatever I am, I spend way too much time on introspection, too much time bemoaning my situation. Now is the time for action. Grar.
We met up with Jakardros and his men that morning and set off. The skies were overcast and threatening to unleash a downpour upon us, though we managed to remain dry for most of the journey to the fort. Aside from Paulie, who was feeling, and I quote, “FABULOUS!” today, the general demeanor of the group was fairly grim, though determined.
We reached the fort sometime in the late morning, having made good time. From our spot in the woods, we could see the fort fairly well but were fairly sure that the ogres within couldn’t see us. Fort Rannick had seen better days. One of the gates looked like it would be impossible to open, and the walls showed signs of damage from fighting.
Jak drew up a map in the dirt and we began trying to figure out a plan of attack. The fort was built into a mountainside. The walls weren’t so high as to be insurmountable. In fact, the outer walls weren’t all that high at all, only about fifteen feet. Lenn at least would be able to scale them with little trouble. Hell, with the battle damage, we might even be able to pull one down and bypass the gates entirely.
There were two bridges across the river that encircled the man-made walls, one to the south and the other to the east of the fort, fairly close to the two main gates and we would have to cross several hundred yards of open terrain to cross them. It would be fairly difficult to do this without being seen. What we needed was a good distraction.
We weren’t without assets and opportunities, however. Orik would arrive shortly, so we would have a relatively large force, perhaps enough to try a full frontal assault. Jak also knew that there were several structures within that could be brought down as distractions to cover the movements of a team working within. I also knew that while the eastern gate wouldn’t open, it wouldn’t take much force to just knock it down.
Vale, Geo and Shalelu did some scouting while we planned. When they returned, Vale reported that there appeared to be a cave behind the waterfall near the southern gate. Jak suddenly remembered that there was a hidden tunnel into the fort through the caves, but warned that it was full of something called shocker lizards. Because of course it was. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They hated the smoke of a substance called bitterbark, so we might be able to use the cave’s natural airflow to fill the tunnel with smoke and send them scurrying into the fort as a further distraction.
Geo pulled me aside and warned me that there was a lake near the southern gate that was filled with the maimed and bloated corpses of many who had fallen defending the fort. He was concerned since I had shown such aversion to the ogres’ handiwork at the Graul farm. I thanked him, but considered the tactical possibilities that might provide. Perhaps I had an alternative way of dealing with the lizards.
In the end, though, I decided against my idea. A three pronged attack would likely be the best option. If that included lizards swarming as well, so much the better. We began gathering bitterbark while we waited, since we would need a lot of it. Around mid-afternoon, it began to rain.
Once Orik arrived sometime around dusk, we began going over the plan. It involved three groups. The first, which was comprised of Orik’s unit, I codenamed Hammer. Hammer’s job was to pound on the eastern gate, drawing attention and bringing it down. They were to engage and kill as many ogres as possible, falling back when things looked like they might get dangerous. We provided them with our mounts to help facilitate their escape.
The second group, which I dubbed Sickle, would be a five person force tasked with infiltrating the fort proper and slicing the head off the enemy force. This certainly meant taking out the ogres in charge, but I hoped it would give us a shot at Lucrecia as well.
The third group, which I dubbed Star, would be comprised of Shalelu and the three Black Arrows. They would begin by smoking out the shocker lizards, then follow the open path through the south gate that Sickle would leave. One of their number would use a couple IEDs that Geo and I whipped up using some gunpowder from Orik and other supplies to blow the southern bridge, forcing any Ogres who escaped to swim through the rain gorged river or go through Orik’s crew. Once the bridge was blown, that person would join up with Orik while the others began looking for targets of opportunity and chances to make distractions. Jakardros was to use his own discretion on what targets to hit.
Since ogres, much like onions, can see in the dark, we decided to wait until just after sunrise to attack. That way, the sun would be at Orik’s back, making it harder for the enemy to shoot at his men. Don’t look at me like that. You and I both know onions are simply biding their time until they spring up from the ground en masse and take their brutal revenge on their human oppressors. Don’t believe me? Try leaving one in the back of your fridge for six months.
While the rest set up camp, I sat down and began working on a scroll. I needed one extra spell for the following day and had the materials I needed on hand to make what I would need. I also wanted to keep from dwelling on the next day’s battle.
The nightmares that night weren’t too horrible. Not as bad as they had been, at least. I mean, I kept dying, but all the deaths were clean deaths. Arrow to the throat, cleaved in two by an ogre hook… nothing too drawn out.
At dawn, we struck camp and set out. Aurora was hesitant to leave Starbrite, but she knew that Orik’s team probably had the least risky job, so ultimately wished the horse luck and we set off.
Geo had been kind in describing the scene at the lake. It was ungodly what they had done to these poor people’s corpses. I swore I would make them pay.
Once we heard the sound of Orik’s assault beginning, I cast a few spells and Geo drank one of his concoctions, then he, Lenn and I went over the wall next to the south gate. Lenn climbed while Geo and I, both invisible, flew. Within a matter of moments, the pair of ogres still at the gate were slain and the gate was open.
We made our way quickly to a spot under the rickety old barracks, which Jak had called a “Fire Hazard”. I think he was being kind. I’m pretty sure the heat of a fart would be all it would take to set that dried out bundle of tinder ablaze.
Geo crept inside to look for surviving Black Arrows, but instead found nearly a dozen sleeping ogres. We quietly barricaded the door and set the building on fire before continuing onward, past the nearby cookhouse, which was little more than a roof supported by a few pillars.
I won’t describe what was cooking in fires of the cookhouse, but I will tell you that the smoke was disturbingly flavorful. If we weren’t careful, I suspected Lenn would be interrogating their chef before the end of the day, trying to find out what seasonings the monster used.
We reached the main door of the fort. We could hear some fighting within as the ogres dealt with the shocker lizards. Lenn braced his shoulder against the door and began pushing with all his might. His eyes bulged with the strain. It looked like he was going to hurt himself, so I stepped up. “Lenn, the hinges go the other way. You need to pull.”
He stopped pushing. “Oh. I knew that,” he said, a little too loudly, before heaving the door the correct way, nearly yanking it off of its hinges.
Thankfully, the ogres inside didn’t hear us. We slipped inside undetected and began our thorough search. We didn’t want to risk missing any ogres and it would be nice to find something that might assist us against them.
Our first fight was against a pair of ogres who were engrossed in playing with human armor. Each of them was wearing something far too tight for it. The battle was quick, fierce and not nearly as loud as it could have been.
Shortly after that, we ran across a quartet of ogres fighting over a hollowed out horse’s head that each wanted to wear as a hat. The room they were in had two entrances, so we caught them in a pincer and made similarly short work of them. For some reason, Lenn hung onto the horse head.
There were a number of guest quarters that looked ransacked, but were thankfully free of the ogre filth that permeated much of the rest of the large stone building. The ogres had also done a number on the fort’s library. I’d suspect that they were wiping their asses with the books, but I don’t think ogres bother with such hygienic practices.
As we inspected the kitchen, which had a number of bodyparts lying about, I came to the inevitable conclusion that this was going to be just like the Graul farm. Feigning illness, I slipped out of the room and returned to where we had slain the four ogres.
Normally this type of magic required valuable onyx, but I had another option. I took my dagger in hand and offered my own blood as fuel for the spells I would cast. I almost cried out in pain as the magic tore at my life’s blood. I then reached out and touched the corpses of the two closest ogres.
Their skin bubbled and boiled before melting away, leaving only a pair of skeletons, which immediately burst into flame and rose to their feet, looking at me to command them. I cast the spell again and animated the remaining two corpses. “Wait here,” I told them. “I will call out for you when I need you.”
I escaped the stifling heat of the room and returned to the others, carefully hiding the wound to my palm. “You okay?” Aurora asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Did you find anything?”
“All that was left is a barrel of pickled fish. We suspect that ogres simply don’t like the stuff.”
Great. Now I just needed to find a way to weaponize that and we’d all be saved! “Alright,” I said, dismissing the idea. “Let’s continue.”
Geo peeked in another room and returned. “There’s a lone ogre in there. It looks more dangerous than normal,” he added.
I had to think of something. “I saw something in the library we might be able to use,” I said.
None of them questioned me, just heading to the library. “So, what can we use?” Paulie asked.
“A clear path in the hallway,” I replied. “Wait here a moment.” I popped out and ordered one of the burning skeletons to attack the ogre we had found, then went back into the library.
“What’s going on?” Aurora asked.
We heard the sound of fighting. “Wait for it,” I said, casting a spell to increase my allies’ speed. “Ring around the rosies. Pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, they all fall DOWN!” Nothing happened. “Damn, that would have been great if I had managed to pull off proper timing, but it –“ I was cut off by the sound of a small explosion. “Charge!” I said, flinging open the door. The others did as I said.
We made quick work of the burned ogre, but it was still a tough fight. Aurora took a mighty blow, but her armor saved her from the worst of it. Afterward, Paulie healed her and tended to the wound on my hand and we continued our search.
We peered down a stairwell and spotted an ogre dying at the bottom of the stairs. He had been swarmed by the shocker lizards. We put a few arrows in him to be sure he was dead and then proceeded upstairs, but not before I ordered the skeletons to guard the hallway.
Upon seeing the skeletons, Aurora gave me an accusing look. “What did you do?” she asked.
“What I had to,” I replied softly. She didn’t say anything further, but the look she gave me told me that this conversation wasn’t over.
The second floor hallway was lined with antlers, likely trophies from the hunt. The ogres had decorated them with trophies of their own, and each antler held assorted human viscera. They also drew a three eyed jackal for some reason. Don’t ask me.
Geo peered into the nearest room. Closing it softly, he made the hand signs for “Single extremely large ogre” and “Creepy Human Taxidermy”.
It really bothers me that we even have to have a hand signal for “Creepy Human Taxidermy”.
I made the hand signal for “Attack Pattern Alpha”, which is our go to plan of attack. The others nodded and we prepared. Geo drank a potion while Lenn and Aurora readied to charge. I flung open the door and unleashed a blinding burst of magical light. The fourteen foot tall ogre within cried out in surprise. He hadn’t been quick enough and was now blind.
The others ran in and flanked him, then began laying into him with mighty swings while Paulie and I set up to support with arrows and spells. I even hit the enemy with a tanglefoot bag, further weakening his ability to strike back or escape.
He struck Aurora hard, and I distinctly caught the sound of a magical bane weapon as it did. This one was probably attuned to harm humans.
Geo struck at his back. With two quick slashes of his dagger, he opened a hole in the foe’s side. Then his four tentacles thrust into the hole. With a quick yank, Geo now had a giant ogre kidney and the ogre was missing one. The monster tried to cry out in pain, but a blow of Lenn’s axe caught him in the throat and he cried out no more. I won’t go into detail about his “artistic” handiwork. I looked away as soon as he was dead.
Paulie tended to Aurora’s wound once more and we continued our search. The next room contained a number of corpses hanging from the ceiling. Someone was draining out the blood. Geo told us that it looked like they were less than a day old. If we had attacked yesterday, we might have saved them. I asked him not to tell Jakardros that as we cut them down.
In the back of my mind, the part of me I had locked up was hyperventilating.
After setting the bodies respectfully on the floor, we searched around and found a number of maps. We figured they might be useful, so we took them. I would make copies and maybe we could sell them later.
Geo informed us that the next room contained a pair of ogres. One was a female and the other was a male with a metal jaw. I didn’t want to think too long about the implications of either of those, so we once again went with “Attack Pattern Alpha”, bursting into the room, blinding one of the foes – the woman looked away quick enough – and began another quick and dirty fight.
The ogress was a spellcaster, likely a sorceress. She tried to protect herself by surrounding herself in mirror images. She wasn’t counting on a volley of arrows from Paulie and Aurora’s flurry of attacks. Paulie removed a couple images and Aurora’s strikes destroyed the rest. It took almost no time to end her life after that. Meanwhile, Geo and Lenn easily slew the ogre with the metal jaw.
The room had once been the commander’s room. Much of the room had been torn apart by ogres, but Geo found a hidden cache. Inside was some stuff that suggested that the commander had been wooing a nymph out in the Shimmerglens. I hung on to the lock of nymph hair in case we needed to scry to find her, but decided Jakardros could have all the god-awful poetry. I’m not sure if White Willow is a person or a place, but the captain owed it an apology.
We went out onto the outer landing to survey the area. Fighting was going heavily in our favor. We would have control of the fort within the hour. But one thing bothered me. Where was Lucrecia?
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
“You have proven most interesting!” A voice said, coming from a nearby battle damaged statue. “My master cannot wait to meet you. Soon, you shall have to deal with the mighty Mokmurian!” And then there was laughing.
As she spoke, I quickly chanted the cantrip that would allow me to sense magical auras. The spell she was using was one I recognized. I had dubbed it “Ventriloquism”. It has a proper name, but I can never remember the proper names of spells, preferring my simple nicknames. Most importantly, the range on it put her within a hundred yards of us.
I looked around frantically as I cast another spell. “Lucrecia is trying to escape!” my voice boomed, magically enhanced and likely audible over a mile away. “One thousand gold to anyone who stops her and brings me her head!”
I kept looking. Where was she? “In any kind of an emergency situation an operative’s greatest enemy is panic. The spike of adrenaline, the increased blood pressure and the loss of any sense of time can make it impossible to think clearly at exactly the time you need a clear head the most. In those moments it takes all your training, all your will power to pull yourself back from the brink.” I once again saw Michael Westen standing next to me. “You prepared something special for her, didn’t you?”
That was right. I took a deep breath and cast another spell, one I had prepared in case we encountered her. Xanesha had used magic to turn invisible. It was reasonable that Lucrecia might as well.
The spell active, I looked around. I spotted her nearly to the crest of the cliffs above. Without thinking, one of my wands was in my hand and I unleashed a couple force bolts at her, the only magic I had left with the kind of reach I needed to hit her.
She laughed as she escaped over the ridge and I cursed, my voice still booming. I hadn’t been quick enough. I hadn’t planned enough. I had failed.
I sighed and released the magic that allowed me to be so loud. “Come on,” I said to the others. “Let’s keep searching the fort. There may still be other ogres hanging around to work out my frustration on.”
Naturally, there weren’t any up in the lone tower. All we found up there was a bell whose clapper had been replaced with a corpse. You might think a corpse would make a poor replacement, but the ogres had strapped a metal helmet on him, so it’s possible it was at least a passable substitute. We decided we would cut him down later and decided to head to the basement.
We carefully stepped over the corpse of the ogre we’d put a few arrows into earlier as we made our way downstairs. As we brought magical light into the room, we heard several sounds, as though something were pulling back from the light. I even heard a soft, fearful whimper.
Geo was the first to make out what was in the darkness before us. “There are survivors!” he shouted. “Kyle, get over here! We need light!”
I moved forward and saw several figures in cells flinching away from the light. The poor wretches looked battered and malnourished. Their eyes were uncomprehending, seemingly unable to recognize us as friends. How long had they been held here? What horrors had been inflicted on these poor people? Before we could help them, we would need to calm them. I began singing a lullaby Nerina had taught me years ago.
The soothing music visibly calmed them and Geo approached the bars of the cell. “We’re here to rescue you,” he said softly. “Jakardros is outside mopping up the last of the ogres. The fort is secure.” He motioned to Lenn. “Open the door.”
Lenn took a moment to study the door, then shrugged and kicked it, breaking the hinges. The door crashed down with a loud bang, startling the people within. With the door no longer in the way, Paulie stepped forward and began helping Geo tend to the people’s wounds.
While they were occupied, I began looking around the rest of the room. One section was filled with silk curtains and pillows. It reminded me of one of those harem rooms you see in movies. More than anything, though, I noticed that there was no scent of ogre filth down here. For some reason or another, they had restrained their natural tendencies down here. It was almost as if…
“This was where Lucrecia was staying,” I said. I began looking around more intently. There were papers strewn everywhere, mostly business papers related to the Paradise, but there was also a single ornate scroll case lying in a corner.
I crossed the room and opened the case. Within was a parchment with the title “Those who’ve agreed to grant their greed to the Master’s need.” Beneath were a number of names, including Kaven’s. Everyone on the list was marked for death. And Lucrecia had left the list behind. Why? Why would she leave something so important behind? Unless…
I began cursing in seven languages. We had been so close. If we had come in through the tunnel, we would have had her. But we had outsmarted ourselves. Sending in the shocker lizards had given her time to escape. If we had just checked the basement before going upstairs, we still might have gotten her! But she had escaped!
I screamed in incoherent rage and began punching the stone wall with all my might, oblivious to the pain it caused. Someone came up behind me. They were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. The pounding of my pulse was too loud in my ears to hear anything but my own screams of rage.
As I pulled back for another blow, someone grabbed my arm. Furious, I spun around and swung as hard as I could with my metal gauntleted fist. Aurora deflected the blow easily and kicked my feet out from under me. I fell onto several of the pillows on the floor, dragging her down with me.
Let me tell you something. That armor she wears is heavy. As she landed on me, it knocked the air from me. Tears of frustration welled up and I began sobbing. Pinned by the deceptively strong woman, it was all I could do. I was vaguely aware of the pain in my hand beginning to subside and when I looked over, Paulie was there, wand in hand.
I began to calm a bit, though I was still hyperventilating, and Aurora let me up. I sat there, cupping my hands over my mouth. I was incredibly embarrassed, but thankfully, no one said anything about it. “Jakardros said there was something dangerous in the tunnels,” Aurora said, softly patting my back. “Since we’re down here, let’s go take care of it.”
I nodded and we decided to go looking. Sure enough, we found an old crypt and were attacked by a specter. With magical weapons, bolts of force and channeled positive energy, it never stood a chance against us.
Once we were done, we returned everything in the crypt to its proper resting place, since it was likely someone disturbing the bones had unleashed the specter, then headed back. The freed prisoners had finished the sausages Lenn had left with them and I finally got a good look at them. There were a few more than half a dozen Black Arrows: five men, three women. There was also one other, an unconscious man not wearing their uniform, just simple traveler’s clothes.
I asked one of the others about the unconscious man. They told me he had come to the fort just before the attack, asking about some nearby ruins that no one at the fort had heard of. That was suspicious, so I searched the man’s pockets. He only had one item on him, a small notebook with a familiar logo on it.
“He’s a Pathfinder,” I said, holding back the urge to spit in disgust. The Society and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. Mostly, though, it’s a personal grudge I have over them not allowing me to access their library in Absalom.
But it meant he likely wasn’t involved with Lucrecia’s people. His arrival here probably was just a coincidence. I thumbed through the notebook, but could make neither heads nor tails of it. It appeared to be written in some kind of cipher. Given enough time, I was sure I could crack it, but we had other things to do. I could easily enough just enchant the Pathfinder when he woke up and convince him to translate it for me. I don’t like using magic to subvert people’s wills, at least not unless they’re enemy combatants, but there was a part of me starting to think it could be important. After all, I had just gotten two new pieces to the puzzle. Maybe I was starting to see the bigger picture.
After my earlier outburst, I think it unnerved everyone a bit when I began laughing out of nowhere. “EUREKA!” I shouted, a bit too enthusiastically. “It all makes sense!”
Several of my companions exchanged a worried look. “What makes sense, Kyle?” Aurora finally asked.
“Why would Lucrecia take Fort Rannick? Because she doesn’t want the Black Arrows interfering with whatever she has planned. The list said ‘Need’. Not ‘wish’, not ‘desire’, but ‘need’. If I’m right and there is a Vault of Greed that they’re trying to open it to get whatever is inside, then it’s more than just simple treasure. It’s something vital to their goal. So why take Fort Rannick? Because it’s near the Vault! It can’t be coincidence that a Pathfinder is here looking into a nearby ruin. It has to be Thassilonian. If we can get there, maybe we can solve the puzzle and get in, allowing us to deny our foes access to what they seek. After all, Nualia couldn’t solve the puzzle holding back Malfeshnekor, but we did.
“And if not, maybe we don’t need to open the vault and take what’s inside. Maybe all we need to do is set a few charges and collapse the mountain on it. Either way we do it, we win!” I looked at Paulie. “Let me know as soon as he wakes. We should probably make these ruins our number one priority.” I thought for a moment. “Well, after securing the fort.”
Our attack had started just after dawn and we had completely secured Fort Rannick somewhere around ten in the morning. Having decided to wait on the Pathfinder, we spent much of the rest of the day on cleanup. Ogre corpses were tossed into a pile by my skeletons and burned. Once that task was done, I destroyed the skeletons.
Some of the soldiers began cleaning up debris while the hot sorceress from Orik’s unit and I used our magic to scour filth from the floors, walls and ceilings. There would be no beds available today, but at least we would have clean shelter.
Others worked at gathering up the bodies of the fallen and digging graves for proper burial. Lenn worked tirelessly, digging over a dozen graves in a single afternoon. With his efforts and the work of several others, there were enough graves for all of the bodies we could find.
Jakardros was thankful that some people had been saved and was interested in our findings in the captain’s quarters. He hoped that maybe the man had been out visiting the nymph when the attack had occurred and had survived. We promised that if the Pathfinder didn’t wake up by the next morning, we’d look into that first.
Early in the afternoon, Aurora and I had a fight about my use of necromancy. She was rightly concerned by my use of black magic. I admitted to her that there was danger there. The risk wasn’t that the magic was evil, but that the power it offered was intoxicating. If I came to rely on it, it would be easier and easier to use until it was my first choice. I couldn’t risk that, so I promised to only use it in dire circumstances. She was still angry and we didn’t speak for much of the rest of the day.
At dusk, with clouds in the sky and a falling drizzle threatening to turn into a downpour, they held a funeral procession for all the fallen. I watched from up on the second floor landing as each was laid to rest. From my vantage point, I heard someone comment that there should be music, so I pulled out my violin and played. I knew several hymns I had learned on Golarion, but didn’t want to offend anyone, so I stuck with a traditional funeral hymn from the church of Pharasma, goddess of death. It felt like a pretty neutral choice. I then followed it up with “Amazing Grace”, figuring no one would likely get offended by a song they didn’t know.
After I had finished playing, I was aware that everyone had been watching my performance intently. I somberly nodded to Magrim Emberaxe once I had finished and he began the funeral rites. From nearby, I heard Applejack whinny and turned to see what was going on. One of the soldiers had rushed over to calm her, but I saw where she was looking.
I followed her gaze. Up on one of the outer walls across from me stood a winged woman clad in silver-gray armor. The armor didn’t really show any of her features, but I know a woman when I see one. The plate armor was adorned with skulls and her open-faced helmet didn’t reveal even a single feature. It was preternaturally still. I almost thought it was a statue until it cocked its head at me, a gesture of curiosity, and I saw the glowing light of its two red eyes.
I had seen the figure before, in the woods, but this was the first time I had gotten so clear a look at it. There was a part at the back of my mind that said I knew what it was, but try as I might, I couldn’t recall. I didn’t sense any malice from it, just curiosity. I glanced away to see if anyone else had noticed it. No one appeared to have seen it. When I turned back, it was gone. I decided not to tell anyone. I mean, they never believed me before, why should they now?
That night, Aurora and I apologized for what we had said to each other earlier in the day. We ended up sharing one of the guest quarters with a couple soldiers. We slept in our rather large tent while they just lay on bedrolls on the other side of the room. I woke up after two hours and considered going off to see if the sorceress was interested in some company, but decided to just get some more rest, even if magic made it unnecessary.
Morning would come all too soon, and with it, more challenges.