Geo’s research efforts were more thorough than any grad student I’ve ever known. He first spoke to Brodert Quink, who solved part of the puzzle and put him on a path towards another collector. The collector then provided him with the remaining bits of information required to get us going on the next step. Then he went to the Stone of the Seers and hired the diviners to verify information and see what else he could find. He said he would have asked me to cast the spells, but I had been busy with out construction.
Let me summarize his findings here. First of all, there was a pair of dwarven brothers, Silas and Varivek Vekker, who had supposedly found Xin-Shalast. They had been gold miners and had stumbled across it looking for more veins of gold. They had even organized an expedition with major backers, but it had never returned.
Unfortunately, they had not revealed the exact location to their backers, but the divinations revealed that we could find the answers we needed – as well as some unspecified danger – at the Vekkers’ cabin, the location of which being something we had learned. And if not, we could follow the basic information the backers knew, following the river Avah into the mountains. It would take longer, but it was better than nothing.
The diviners had also warned that the spirits they consulted foretold that the fabric of reality had frayed in the region around Xin-Shalast and, more concerning, that the presence of a being they only referred to as The King casts a shadow upon our party’s future.
<If Elvis shows up, I’m done.>
<I know, right?>
Because of our worry about the danger possibly waiting at the cabin, we scried and teleported in several miles away. It was midafternoon and the sky was clear when we arrived. That lasted just long enough for us to get a look at the cabin through telescopes.
The blizzard came without warning. We only had two options at that point. Either move quickly to the cabin or teleport out. As we didn’t have time for the latter, we made our way to the cabin. Over the roaring of the wind, we heard some kind of howl that sent chills running down my spine. None of us was sure what it was, but I had a couple theories that I didn’t like. I decided to refrain from bringing it up until I had more to go on.
From outside the cabin, we didn’t see anything inside, so we moved towards the building. Lenn started going around the other side. “What are you doing?!” I shouted at him over the wind.
“SAW FIREWOOD! MEET YOU INSIDE!” he roared back. I had no trouble hearing him over the wind. We made our way inside carefully. There was nothing dangerous seeming immediately within, so we decided to wait for Lenn. After several minutes, we decided to go check on him.
We opened the door to find the big guy carrying a massive armful of wood. He was also covered in bleeding wounds. Also, mushrooms were growing from the wounds.
“What happened?” Geo asked, carefully plucking a mushroom, probably for later study.
“Big tree attacked me,” Lenn said. “My axe was stronger.” He was grinning. Well, whatever makes him happy, I guess. Still, I motioned for Paulie to try to magically attend to the fungal infection and Lenn’s other wounds.
We set the wood in the foyer and made our way inside, finding ourselves in some kind of gold processing room. There was dust everywhere. I had a bad feeling in the back of my head, like there was something I should know but it just wasn’t coming to me.
Naturally, we spent some time searching for valuables. We didn’t find much, but enough unprocessed gold to make it worth the effort, so that was good. We prepared to move on deeper into the cabin, but were stopped when the ghost appeared.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” I said, remembering the Foxglove Manor and eyeing the pack Geo had put the mushroom into suspiciously.
The ghost, that of a dwarven man who I assumed was one of the Vekker brothers, paid us no attention at first, just wandering around complaining about how hungry it was. It then stooped down and dragged its fingers through the dust, then stuck them in its mouth.
“Oh my god! This is delicious!” the ghost exclaimed. It turned to us. “You HAVE to try this!” Then it disappeared.
I could feel a compulsion to do as the ghost said, but I resisted and the strange craving passed. I looked around and saw that most others had also done so, but Aurora was bending down to try it. Suddenly, the bad feeling I had came to the forefront and I realized why this room had bothered me.
“Stop her!” I shouted. “It’s poison!” Arsenic, in fact. Yes, that word got your attention, didn’t it? But what you may not know is that arsenic is used in a number of semiconductors. And while it is most commonly harvested as a byproduct of the smelting of copper, it is also found in the smelting dust of lead and gold. Like the dust all around us.
Lenn was closest to her and restrained her. But she struggled and begged him to let her go, her eyes wild with craving for the dust around us. I hadn’t prepared any spells that would break the compulsion. It was possible our only option was to let her do it and then cure the poison. I knew one of Paulie’s inner forms had access to a spell for that.
But then I got an idea. I motioned for the others to not interfere and began acting like I was seeing another ghost. “You’re right,” I said as loudly as I could while managing to sound stricken. “There is nothing left for me in this world. This world would be better off without me.” I drew my gun and put it to my head. “Goodbye,” I said to everyone.
“KYLE!” Aurora screamed, kicking Lenn and breaking his hold and rushing to me. She struck the gun from my hand and restrained my arms. “Please! You have so much to live for!”
I smiled at her. “Over your craving?”
She looked beffudled. “What?”
“You don’t want to eat the dust anymore?”
“Why would I want to…wait. I did want to. Why did I want to do that?”
“Ghostly compulsion. Glad to see my charade broke you from it.”
“You mean you weren’t actually going to… huh.” Her grip on my arms loosened.
I hugged her. “Sorry for worrying you. But you worried me too, so I think we’re even.”
“EATING THINGS FROM THE FLOOR IS BAD!” Lenn bellowed.
Aurora looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”
We continued onward and soon encountered the ghost again. This time, it looked half eaten, its eyes wild with terror. “Run!” it shouted. “Run for your lives! They’re going to eat you!” Once more, I felt the compulsion wash over me, and for a split second I felt afraid, but it quickly passed.
Geo and Lenntu, however, didn’t resist. They looked at us with wild eyed terror and sprinted away from us towards the entrance we’d come in, then out into the snow. We chased after them, but couldn’t see them. We followed the tracks to the edge of the cliff, where we found Geo hanging from the rock face by his tentacles.
“I seem to be in need of some assistance,” he told us, his voice betraying no signs of actual concern. Lenn yanked him up. “My thanks. Lenntu fell down there,” he said as he pointed down the sixty foot drop.
I nodded, cast a flight spell and went down to him. Lenntu didn’t seem terribly injured, more embarrassed than anything. “That was not my finest moment,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, then cast a spell upon him to allow him to climb like a spider. He quickly made his way up the sheer cliff and I flew up after him.
The next ghost was less comical and more annoying. Its compulsion left Aurora and Paulie convinced that they were starving to death. Paulie was convinced that the only way to survive was consume humanoid flesh and tried to attack me. Aurora felt the same, but managed to resist the urge to try to eat one of us.
Lenn stepped in and did something smart. While Geo and Lenntu restrained Paulie, Lenn pulled some sausage from his bag. “THESE ARE ORC SAUSAGES!” he said, shoving one into Paulie’s chomping mouth. Then another and another. He gave a handful of the sausages to Aurora, who ate greedily.
Once the two were under control, I pulled Geo aside. “‘Orc’ sausages?” I whispered.
“He learned the recipe from an orc. I do not believe they contain the flesh of any orcs, or other humanoids for that matter. Yes, if I recall correctly, I believe there might be dog meat in those, but nothing humanoid.”
I nodded. “We’ll wait until we’re done with this place before we tell either of them that, okay?”
“These hauntings seem to follow a pattern.”
“I’d noticed that. It’s almost as if there was a wendigo involved.”
“A what?” He had clearly never heard the word. I hoped that was a good sign.
“An old Algonquin legend from back home. They possess people and turn them into cannibals. I’ve seen references to a similar creature here in my studies. They supposedly don’t like fire or cold iron. Keep that in mind if we manage to come across one.”
“Noted.”
We continued on, easily making it past the cabin’s attempt to attack us directly – because of course it did – and into another room, where we found a pile of bones. I spotted a glint in the pile, and went in for a closer look. That was a mistake.
“That ring looks familiar,” I heard myself say. And it did. It looked like my wedding ring. A feeling of dread filled me. I didn’t actually believe that it was me. It was clearly a ghostly premonition meant to drive me mad. But the ghosts didn’t need me to believe it. A swarm of them descended on me and began ripping and tearing at my flesh.
I screamed in pain, but then it stopped. Aurora was there beside me, full halo, golden radiance bathing the room. “YOU WILL NOT HARM HIM!” she decreed. The ghosts reeled back in fear at her words and the consecrated light emanating from her. But they did not flee.
“I cannot see whatever was attacking you,” Geo said. “Do you have a way to harm it?”
“They’re afraid of Aurora’s light,” I said. “I might have something. Prepare for a flash.” I cast my spell, sending a burst of radiant light through the room. The ghosts reeled in pain and fled.
“You okay?” Aurora asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“I am, thanks. How did you know that would work?”
“I didn’t, but since I couldn’t see what was attacking you, and it was the first thing that came to mind.”
Once we were sure that we had thoroughly searched the cabin for more surprises, we picked a room to wait out the night and the blizzard in. Paulie consecrated it to offer us some protection against ghosts and Lenn set up a good fire in the fireplace to ward away the chill.
Meanwhile, I sat down with a journal of some kind I had found. It belonged to Silas Vekker and told me much about their ill-fated expedition and even the day they discovered the path to Xin-Shalast. But the pages detailing the path were missing, because OF COURSE THEY WERE.
Annoyed, I curled up to nap. Lenn and Geo would stand watch first, then Aurora and I would take over after our two hours of necessary sleep were over.
Of course, we weren’t allowed those two hours. Less than half an hour after laying down, the cabin and its ghostly occupants went nuts.
We were prepared for a major fight, having even separated from my armor so Juiz could use it to launch force bolts at the ghosts while I attacked, but the fight didn’t come. After about a minute or so, the noises stopped and the ghost from earlier appeared.
“I have quieted the others. But tell me, you truly are alive?” Several of us nodded. “I see! You seek the City of Greed? You should give up, lest you become like me. But I suspect that you cannot be swayed, so perhaps we can make a deal?”
“What kind of deal?” Geo asked. His curiosity was blatant.
“My brother died on a ledge perhaps a mile north of here. Bring me his bones so that we may reconcile and finally go to our rest. In exchange I will give you the missing pages from my ledger, which will tell you the way.”
We exchanged a glance. “That seems fair enough,” Geo said. “The storm has broken and the moon shines brightly, so we will go shortly.”
“Do not tarry overlong. I can quiet the others for a short while yet, but they will get beyond my control soon.”
We stepped outside and I set up a special device roughly a hundred feet from the cabin, in hopes that the ghosts couldn’t mess with it. “Juiz, run a systems check and connect with it.”
“Systems all nominal. Connection established.”
“Good. Warn me if you lose the connection.”
“Acknowledged.”
It took about an hour, but we finally found the dwarf’s corpse. Its feet were burned off and the rest of it was frozen solid. I cursed. “What’s wrong?” Aurora asked, the only one close enough to hear me.
“I can’t deny the nature of the real enemy out here any longer.” I’d read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid. There was a story about a wendigo in them that itself was an adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s ‘The Wendigo’. In it, the monster makes you run faster and faster until your very feet burn off. And everything fit. Brother versus brother. Greed leading to cannibalism. And now the burnt feet. All signs of a wendigo.
I scanned all around us, looking to spot the monster. I was so focused that I missed the arrival of the frost worm. Yes. You read that right. I missed the arrival of the thirty five foot long, four ton giant worm. And then, to top it off, while I was looking at that, the dwarf’s ghost rose from its corpse to attack us.
I guess I’m never gonna get that ‘Eagle-Eye’ nickname I wanted when I was six. Unless its said ironically. Maybe ‘Mole-Eye’, which is not to be confused with mole, which is a sauce that’s delicious on chicken.
Anyway, the fight was brutal, but fairly quick. I erected a wall of force between those fighting the worm and those fighting the ghost. Paulie used a spell to make the ghost more corporeal and then went full firebug to counter the worm. Lenn and Juiz focused the worm with Paulie while Aurora tanked the ghost and Geo struck at it from invisibility and Lenntu fired his shotgun. Once my wall was up, I tried to give Lenn, Juiz and Paulie protection against the worm’s cold attacks, but Lenn resisted.
So I readied myself to protect him another way. Just as the worm fell – it didn’t take long thanks to Paulie’s flames, Lenn’s massive blows and Juiz laying into it with the spells in the wand crystal – I cast another wall, this time between Lenn and the foe.
My timing wasn’t perfect. The worm’s death throes caused it to explode, blasting its icy blood and shards of ice in every direction. The wall I had put up earlier blocked the blast from hitting Aurora, Lenntu and Geo, but the new one I was making to protect Lenn was only halfway up when the worm more or less exploded. So it helped, certainly, but he still got hit.
Of course, the pain didn’t bother him. He rushed over and helped the others finish the ghost. The fight was over just in time for Paulie to switch to healing mode and reach him. He and Juiz had been protected from the icy blood by my magic, but had taken some minor damage from the icy shrapnel. I repair the damage to the powered armor while Paulie healed Lenn. Aurora drank a healing potion and was back in top shape almost immediately.
Which was good, because it was at that moment that we heard a blood curdling howl and the sky darkened with clouds once more. Then the blizzard started up again with a fury. “Juiz! Activate the beacon!”
“Acknowledged.” From the direction of the cabin came a pulsing light.
“Grab the corpse and let’s get moving,” I commanded the AI. “Come on. Everyone make for the strobe at your fastest safe speed!” I didn’t have to make the suggestion twice. The howl had unnerved everyone. Even Lenn seemed spooked.
As we moved, I tossed exploding flash grenades into the air behind us as we moved. I think I connected once, as the explosion was followed by a howl of rage. I also think it caused the wendigo to be more cautious, as we managed to get to the cabin before it caught us.
We barred the door, and it wasn’t even me who made that decision. That was shocking. I looked around and finally saw everyone’s faces. Their eyes were filled with terror. Every one of them. I’d never seen that before.
I mean, I know that they’ve felt fear before. Every one of them has fought for their lives. But this wasn’t normal fear. This was the kind of fear I had felt several times recently – indeed, I was feeling that level of fear right then – but none of the others had seemed nearly as freaked out as I was at any other time.
It had to be a magically induced fear to be gripping them that powerfully. And they had no idea how to deal with it.
“Lenn, set that corpse in the room where we last saw the ghost, then return here. Geo, go with him.” I said, hoping that simple, clear directions would give them something to focus on. Once they returned, I had figured out what I wanted to say. “Listen, everyone. The fear you feel isn’t natural. But it is powerful. You have to work through it. Focus on the goals before us. We just need to last until the brothers reconcile and we get the notes. Then I can teleport us away from here.”
“I DON’T LIKE THIS FEELING,” Lenn said. The others nodded their agreement.
“You get used to it,” I said, not really feeling it. “The first time is the hardest.”
At that moment, the ghosts of the two brothers appeared just on the other side of the doorway. They appeared to be locked in some kind of silent confrontation. At first, it looked like Silas had the upper hand, but then we heard a howl outside. As the wave of fear washed over us, it also hit the ghosts. Suddenly, Silas was losing. Crap.
And, as if things weren’t bad enough, the wendigo began clawing at one of the walls. The boards creaked and strained at the blows. The others were visibly shaken. Not that I can judge. I may have peed a little at the first loud blow.
I had to take the situation in hand. They were soldiers, mostly. Give them orders and they could follow. I hoped. “The wall will break in less than a minute. Lenn, stand to the left side of where it’s striking. Geo, stand on the right. The rest of us will set up a firing line and I’ll put up a wall of flame we can fire through to buff our attacks. Juiz, Lenntu, switch to cold iron rounds. Aurora, use the red magazine.” The red magazine was filled with some of my specialty ammunition. In this case, inciendiary rounds. I doubted we’d need tungsten, polonium or fragmenting rounds for this particular fight.
“Got it,” Aurora replied. The others similarly acknowledged my orders.
“Paulie, do you have any spells that will help with the magical fear?” He, the lone non-soldier of the group, didn’t seem to be paying attention. I had to do something to snap him out of it, but the current soul wasn’t able to react. But there was one soul that likely wouldn’t let fear affect him. “Paulie, conquering your fear is a chance for glory.”
“A CHANCE FOR GLORY?!” the tiefling shouted. He grinned at me. “Yes! Glory!” he tilted his head indicating Geo and Aurora, then tapped his forehead.
No. Not his forehead. His headband. He wanted me to boost everyone’s charisma – which also affected their force of presence, which itself was important for a number of functions, like the spell casting of a sorcerer or oracle, or many functions of a… Then I understood.
“Heh. Glory!” I responded. “And splendor!” I focused on my ring, hardly believing I was using it for such a weak spell, even if it was the right spell at the right time. Unleashing the magic, I boosted everyone’s charisma.
The wall seemed near bursting. I hit Lenn with a spell that would slightly bolster his resolve against fear, hoping his rage would do the rest. Then I joined the firing line. “Wait, what is Paulie casting?” Kira asked me.
“He’s using divine power to bestow the grace of champions upon Geo and Aurora,” I replied silently. I mentally contacted the AI using my telepathic interface. “Juiz, prep some music. Beethoven, if you would. Start it when the wall fails.”
The wall exploded inward in a shower of dust and splinters. Standing there was a massive, footless creature whose head was a deer’s skull. Music began to play and I unleashed my spell, causing a shimmering wall of nearly transparent flames to appear.
The wendigo howled, the supernatural sound washing over us. I gave everything I had, managing not to run. The others similarly resisted the terror. Hope began to shine in within me, burning away the fear unnatural fear, though my normal, everyday fear still clung to me.
“For your crimes against those who dwelt here, I declare your life forfeit!” Geo shouted, not a single trace of fear in his voice.
“In the name of the divine and by the blood of my celestial ancestors, I shall mete justice upon thee!” Aurora declared, her wings and halo flaring dramatically.
“ARAAGGHH!” Lenn roared, producing flaming wings and a halo as well.
“GLORY!” Paulie shouted, unleashing a spell. He began to glow with a golden light and all of us in range felt the blessings of the magic upon us.
“So, you see how it is,” I said to the monster. “So go on, make your noise! Try to kill us if you will, but you will not make us afraid anymore. Come at us! Try to kill us. We’ll show you how a human dies. On his feet and fighting, unwilling to give a single inch.” I pulled my lips back in a grin. “Fire at will!”
The thunderous sound of gunshots filled my heart with such joy that I couldn’t help but sing along with the orchestral music Juiz was playing over a speaker.
Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire drunken we are ent’ring
Heavenly, thy holy home!
Thy enchantments bind together,
What did custom stern divide,
Every man becomes a brother,
Where thy gentle wings abide.
Fall before him, all ye millions?
Know’st thou the Creator, world?
Seek above the stars unfurl’d,
Yonder dwells He in Heaven.
Yeah, maybe I took a few small liberties with words to make them fit the music, skipped a couple passages, but it’s not like anyone else there knew that. I won’t tell them if you don’t.
The wendigo was obviously not prepared for what we had unleashed upon it. Aurora and Geo were the most effective, each and every one of their attacks bursting with holy radiance, but everyone contributed. And at the end, it knew it had to flee. It used one of its magical abilities to turn to mist. That time, I actually had the spell I needed ready. I cast my spell immediately, dispelling its transformation and causing it to fall to the ground.
Now I’m not sure what exactly killed it. Was it Geo yanking its frozen heart out? Was it Lenn splitting it at the waist? Was it the flames from Aurora and Paulie’s precise shots? Or was it that its head exploded when Juiz put a cold iron slug through its skull with the rail gun?
I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure which of those exactly happened first. It was happening so very quickly. But regardless of what killed it, it was dead.
We took a few minutes to patch up our wounds. Paulie cast spells of consecration to help Silas win the confrontation so he and his brother could go to their rest.
A few minutes after that, it was over. Karivek slumped and sighed, then faded away. “Thank you,” Silas Vekker said. “In truth, I would be doing the world a favor if I took the secrets of the City of Greed to my grave, but a promise is a promise. I wish you luck. You will need it.” He too faded, five sheets of paper appearing where he once stood.
The skies began to clear and we could see the crimson of dawn in the sky as the sun crested the mountain. I skimmed the pages. “This has what we need to continue, but we haven’t rested and replenished spells yet. Should we rest here or –“
I couldn’t finish the sentence as each of my other companions – aside from Juiz – interrupted me in unison with something along the lines of “Let’s press on and find somewhere to camp away from here.” We couldn’t help but laugh with relief.
“Fair enough. Paulie, will you do the honors?”
The tiefling grinned. “ONWARD! TO GLORY!” He pointed the way out of the cabin.
“GLORY!” we all answered, before laughing ourselves silly. We were so relieved to be leaving, we even forgot to see if there was anything worth looting on the dwarf’s corpse.
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