Main street, Raegton, City of Kolostia
1.1.4 before Guildfall
“It’s commonly held that one cannot enchant another to harm themselves. That’s mostly true, but there’s wiggle room around the edges. For instance, a harpy song is well known to maintain its potency even when its victim is being shredded alive by her talons. As if the pain of being disemboweled is nothing compared to the ecstasy offered by her voice. This can lead someone to continue to happily embrace a harpy even as she feeds on their entrails.”
“William, for Vauna’s sake, man…” Prius Tanner snarled.
“Shhhh,” Whisper hushed him. “Don’t judge. Just observe. And listen.”
Prius Tanner, a halfling native of the Helgin Glacier in northern Elanora, was a former apprentice of William Bregan’s and the brother-in-law of the guild’s new spymaster. William had considered him a close friend. Together with Prius’ wife, Narls, the priest Breac Sunfist, and William’s own distant relative Adele Gerrywood, they had formed a tight-knit adventuring team under William’s leadership. Prius had even named his son after William. Prius Tanner was also currently tied to a chair. His hands in interdimensional shackles to prevent him from teleporting to safety even if he somehow managed to grasp his Little Warrior shield token, his feet bound together and dangling uselessly above the ground, he could do little but watch. He seemed determined to do something more though, as he rocked back and forth in his restraints, setting his chair to wobbling about on the polished cedar floor.
“I present to you another edge case,” Whisper continued his lecture. “This girl – girl? Can I presume that? You look rather young, but that can be deceiving with elves – as you can see, she is not restrained at all. She should be able to leave at any time. But by separating her sense of self-preservation, and her normal pain response instincts, away from her brain’s reward system, I can compel her subconsciousness to overwhelmingly want to stay despite the obvious danger. And she will continue to remain motionless, and silent, even as that danger is realized.”
Whisper turned away from Prius to pick up a set of tongs and grasp a glowing red-hot coal from a nearby brazier, then advanced on the elf girl. He didn’t even know her name. He’d taken to calling her Quake, due to the way the terrified thing shook as she stood obediently in place. Behind her was a silenced curtain pulled closed over the only window looking out of the room. The busy main street of Raegton lay beyond, but that curtain maintained a wall of silence far wider than its physical width would suggest. Even if Prius screamed his loudest, he’d have a better chance of being heard from the moon than from the street below.
“Damnit, Will, she doesn’t know anything…” Prius cried.
“She does,” Whisper assured him. “The passcode to the arcane lock on the Kolostian Vault. She’s the Captain’s daughter. She saw her mother set the lock in place this morning. Of course, you know those codes as well, so you could stop this at any time. Open your mouth, Quake, there’s a good dear.”
Eyes bulging, struggling against Whisper’s unspoken commands, the girl dropped her jaw. Tears of terror were beginning to pool at the bottom of her eyes.
“That’s what this is about?” Prius exclaimed. “William, put the damn coal down, if you want whatever that relic is so badly we can just go back to the guild and talk about it.”
“Oh, there’s no going back for me,” Whisper chuckled as he dropped the coal into Quake’s mouth and gently pushed her chin up after it. “As you can see, despite the pain, young Quake here is remaining quite still...”
“…YOU DAMNED PSYCHOTIC FREAK…” Prius appeared willing to do Quake’s screaming for her.
“…Well, her neck and head are a quivering wreck, but that’s to be expected. Point is, she’s not thrashing about or screaming like you are. Which is good, I wouldn’t want her to accidentally swallow the coal. That might kill her outright and cost me a fistful of diamonds.” Gently supporting the back of her head, Whisper channeled a light healing spell to keep her conscious, then pulled her chin down and extracted the coal. “You don’t need to say anything now, Quake. Oh, dear, it looks like you couldn’t even if you tried, you poor thing, look at your tongue! No matter. Just think the codes. I assure you, it will only take an instant for me to pick them up.”
Despite her horror, the girl responded by thinking only of random numbers and arcane symbols instead of a coherent code. Her loyalty was as impressive as any Whisper had ever seen.
“Of course, this whole demonstration is more for your benefit than hers,” Whisper turned back to Prius. “I mean, sure, that artifact the Kolostians stumbled on would be nice, but I do have bigger concerns. You need to see for yourself, there really is no lengths I won’t go to. Now, I know there’s basically zero chance of you telling me where your dear wife is...”
“You stay the hell away from her,” Prius growled.
“…but we can work up to that! As I’m learning, these kind of betrayals just take a little practice. You get used to them.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, William,” Prius sobbed, “but I swear to every god known, if you betray us, we’ll throw you into the deepest pit we’ve ever dug and spend the next thousand years pissing into it!”
“My dear master Tanner, what do you mean ‘if’? Let us be frank and open with each other. Your brother-in-law didn’t send you out here to pick up some dusty old relic in a Kolostian vault, and you know it.”
The blood drained from Prius’ face. His jaw clenched. “Alright then…Whisper,” he responded at last. “What do you want with my wife?”
“To remove her from existence, eventually,” Whisper admitted. “But only after she’s told me a few things. And I might not be able to kill her right away – like I was saying, some things we need to work up to, but we get there in the end! Now, as we’re learning to be open and honest with each other, how about I propose a trade? You’re not escaping here alive. But here’s a thought of how your death can still serve the Little Warriors. You came here looking for the identity of who’s been murdering your agents in their sleep. If I, say, put your soul in a jar so you can’t just be resurrected at your temple again, I’d be willing to send your body back to the guild hall with the answers you came for carved into your chest! All I ask in return is, you tell me…”
“Charles already knows,” Prius admitted. “But he doesn’t believe it.”
Whisper’s eyes widened. “Charles Penrose sent his beloved brother-in-law to his death just looking for confirmation that I’m Whisper? Wow! I mean, wow, really, I’m impressed, I hadn’t thought him that ruthless.”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“An unsanctified mission, is it?”
“Your turn,” Prius said. “The relic. What is it?”
Whisper shrugged. “I have no idea. All I know for certain is two outcomes for today have been foreseen, and they both lead to the fall of the Little Warriors. The first outcome is, I walk away with that relic. And the second…no, your turn! Tell me something new.”
“Oh, I thought we were playing two truths and a lie,” Prius replied.
“You want to try a lie?” Whisper leaned forward eagerly. “This’ll be fun, go ahead.”
“Reason still loves you.”
With a sudden heave, Prius Tanner rocked his chair forward, flipping it. It was a pitifully telegraphed move. Whisper darted out of the way easily enough, but Prius’ earlier errant rocking of his chair hadn’t been without purpose. It had lined him up so that as his chair flipped, the legs struck the elf girl in the chest, pushing her through the silenced curtain and out the window.
Whisper snarled and turned to Prius, his hands preparing a spell that would rip the soul from the halfling’s body. If he wouldn’t answer to Whisper, he could always drag the wretch’s spirit back to face the Sin Writer…
NO.
Whisper’s vision faded to black as he felt William rise within him. By the time Whisper had regained control, Prius Tanner was gone.
*******************
After making good his escape from Raegton, Whisper spent a good two days in meditation, communing with Nathrael, ensuring William Bregan was securely locked away again in the back of his head, and that no critical information about their plans had been leaked, recorded or otherwise released into the arcane aether, or anywhere else a passing Little Warrior may stumble on it. That was the first time since Lanszig that William had taken direct control, and the experience left Whisper rather shaken. His former self’s voice had until then been fading. He had even begun to have regular dreams of an odd battle in the Dreamworld, before the Nightmare Gate, where William was wished into nothingness, an event Nathrael assured him would occur in the near future.
Once he had taken precautions, and instructed the Abyssal Guard to prepare for his arrival, he pulled out a black and white circular disk, flipped it over three times in his hand, and tore a hole through reality. He pushed a pair of heavy cotton buds into his ears, and sighed with relief as all sounds from the world were muffled to the faintest hiss. Then he stepped through into the Outer Planes, to a cavern in Phlegethon, amid the howling winds of Pandemonium.
There was no ‘seeing’ in the caverns of Phlegethon. There was a darkness here that was cold beyond mere mortal comprehension of temperature and energy. It was a chill of the soul, a manifestation of the alien nature of the place. There was also no hearing – at least, nothing that wasn’t right next to you was ever going to be heard over the ever present wind, which carried the screams of everyone in that damned realm. Whisper rather enjoyed it. There was always something new to listen to, and there was certainly no risk of fire in a realm who’s air sucked away anything resembling warmth. Through his telepathy, he could sense everything around him easily enough even without his mortal senses.
The Fortress Nightmare lay in one of the largest caverns of this realm. ‘In the lowest part of the lowest cavern, in the highest room of the tallest tower…’. That tower loomed high over the tall and narrow Fortress, shedding a dull grey light that was the only source of illumination in the city. A wide, straight road appeared to lead directly from the gates towards it, but Whisper knew from painful experience that this was merely another illusion. There were no truly straight paths in Pandemonium. Distance and space would stretch and compress in strange ways with every step. Around the gates were the living Walls of Nightmare, the semi-sentient battlements that protected the inner fortress, manned by countless hordes of Hezrou. Clouds of vrock sailed the winds above, their inane chatter constantly adding to the insanity of the endless chorus of wind. A massive winged demon, a balor, stood guard at the gates, surrounded by his minions, and as Whisper arrived he turned and daintily picked up a pair of heavy black-iron manacles, using two of his claws as if they were tweezers.
“Oh, Cherine, you must be joking…” Whisper objected with his telepathy.
“You wish I jest, mind-man!” Cherine’s telepathy felt like a heavy slap. It was beneath a demon of his stature to act with finesse. “You are to wear these as you approach the Sin Writer. You may remove them only as you enter his presence.”
Whisper grimaced, but inwardly couldn’t suppress a chuckle as he offered his hands, finding to some surprise that he was actually feeling proud of William. Even the faintest suggestion that Lord Bregan might make a reappearance was driving one of the fabled captains of the Abyss to take extreme precautions. These manacles would counter all spellcasting, and compel Whisper to obediently, by the most direct path, walk to Nathrael’s throne at the top of the central tower. They crumbled to dust after a single use, and were very difficult and time-consuming for even a master demon smith to create.
There was a press of a crowd on the lower levels of the city. Word was beginning to spread that Nathrael, worshipped as a god in many parts of the Abyss, was preparing to return, and demons of all walks and variety were eager to get a piece of the glory. Cherine, a balor assigned to guard duty at the gates, had appeared almost ecstatic to be there. And most of the succubi, glabrezu and babau milling about appeared to be of similar mindset, despite being asked to gather in the frigid and harsh cold of the far side of Pandemonium. The notoriously cruel and proud demonic hosts even appeared to freely accept other, more alien fiends and dark fey into their midst. But as Whisper reached the tower and began to climb, the numbers thinned. Only Nathrael’s closest lieutenants, the Abyrrus, and those who could bear the presence of the demons of Nightmare spent any time up here.
He passed one room, where a crazy man in a wide top-hat appeared to be rehearsing for a tea party under the watchful gaze of a cold-eyed blonde girl in a blue-and-white peasant’s dress. Whisper and William shuddered together and quickly moved on. Of all of Nathrael’s allies, it was Alice who most gave him pause. The girl personified chaos and madness in a way even demons could not. He ascended another level, and was almost trodden on by a cloven hoof.
“Taboo?” Whisper asked. “Why are you in the form of a satyr?”
“Why are you here at all, little bardling?” Taboo loomed over him, his presence beginning to warp the stairwell. “Do you not have a toddler to murder somewhere?”
“Not today!” Whisper replied cheerily, ducking under Taboo’s enormous wings and entering the uppermost chamber of the tower. He had the satisfaction of feeling William’s presence shrank further back into his head in terror before he opened the door.
There was no true throne in Nathrael’s throne room, of course. That would suggest the Angel of the Abyss were actually here to sit on it, but sadly, he had been exiled, unable to take form even in the Outer Planes. But here, in Pandemonium, one could actually commune with him. Not as a disembodied voice, but as an actual presence, the closest one could come to being face to face with the would-be god of all things. In the center of the throne room was a dark purple gemstone hanging in mid air. The Malth key, named after its creator, which would open the outer edges of Pandemonium and allow one to glimpse, if only for a moment, the realms at the edge of all possible understanding.
In front of the gem was a low-slung stone desk, reminding Whisper of the one William Bregan had commissioned for Charles Penrose as a 60th birthday present, but behind this desk was a long-necked humanoid with dull grey skin. Long-necked, and multi-necked, for this figure had three heads, each perched atop a spindly column. They looked like some perverse, faintly humanoid flower, growing out of the large, red, velvet chair they slumped in. Whisper had no idea what the outer two heads were called. He had only ever spoken to the central one.
“Kevin,” he greeted them, holding out his manacled hands. “You’re looking well.”
“Have you come to grant us victory, my friendly would-be traitor?” Kevin replied pleasantly.
Whisper chuckled. “No, Kevin, not today,” he replied. It was well known among Nathrael’s host by now that one of the few things holding back the invasion was a lack of an invasion route. Whisper should be able to share with them all the teleportation circle pattern, the mental passcodes for its defenses that would otherwise rend apart anyone who used it without permission of Rhillaine or her closest friends, and the secrets to bypass the Forbiddence enchantments permanently woven into the walls there. But every time he tried, William would intervene, causing any information obtained to read like a meaningless garbled mess of numbers and random symbols. Kevin seemed to take perverse joy in reminding Whisper of how he was failing in his primary purpose, to betray the Little Warriors, and at first their relationship had been suitably frosty. But Whisper had slowly come to realize this was just Kevin’s way of showing he cared. As much as a demon could be said to care, anyway.
“Oh, well,” Kevin grumbled. “Another day in Pandemonium for the rest of us, then.” He pulled a key out from a fold of flesh in his neck, and opened Whisper’s shackles, letting them fall to dust on the desk.
With William Bregan still whimpering inside his skull, Whisper stepped around the desk, grasped the Malth Key, and let his mind drift.
Hello, old friend, Whisper called into the void.
My champion, came Nathrael’s response. You return without the relic.
“William got in the way.”
It is of no concern. The relic is in the Little Warrior’s guild hall, which is exactly as I intended. Of greater concern to me is that I see you’re still having problems with your conviction.
Whisper sighed. “No, just with the pieces of my former self you left behind when you made me.”
Patience. Perfection takes time to achieve. You must work at it, repeatedly, relentlessly. You can kill friends and family as easily as anyone else, but it does take some practice.
“Do we have time? Your plans accelerate.”
And you will be ready for them…or you won’t be. I want you there to savor our victory. But I won’t compromise and settle for you being less than you could be, by rushing your lessons.
So Nathrael had an alternative plan for invading the guild hall if William continued to block them. Whisper should have expected as much, but it still felt like a blow to be forced to acknowledge he wasn’t needed as much as he might have liked. “Yes, master. So by now, Prius has told them who I am. What’s my next move?”
More practice. Now they know who you are, your identity must find another value. I need you to be feared, champion. I need the Little Warriors to know they cannot survive unless they destroy you. And I need them to know just how much destroying you will cost them.
*******************
Palace Abazmok, in the Kingdom of Kolostia
1.0.28 before Guildfall
Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes…
Whisper, disguised as Lord Arturio Valance, a mid-ranking noble in the court of Kolostia, couldn’t help but mentally bounce to an imagined tune as the three Little Warriors and three Pizol Rangers entered the hall. The Rangers, Whisper didn’t recognise, but their names were Pel, Shera and Hest. They had not learned to fortify their minds in the slightest, and Whisper had to make an effort to shut their thoughts and their inane, nervous, mental babble out. The first Little Warrior was Leonard Wildtalon, a meathead barbarian from the Helgin Glacier, probably there as a favour to Prius.
Then there was Adele Gerrywood, the granddaughter of his cousin, formerly of his old team he’d formed with Prius. She looked steely-eyed and ready for business.
Finally, entering the room last, was a figure he almost dreaded, as it was most likely to trigger a resurgence from William. He was stocky, though a bit less so than most dwarves, with dusty-gold skin and blazing red hair. He was bare armed but otherwise well armoured in a cloudy-blue material that from a distance might have been mistaken for ice, but which Whisper knew was a rare dark-ice alloy. He carried no weapon, but wore a heavy golden gauntlet on his right fist with the blazing symbol of the sun-goddess carved into the back.
His old apprentice, Breac Sunfist. Whisper forced himself to meet Breac’s eyes, but so far William wasn’t doing anything back in his skull except quietly sulking.
“Thank you all for coming,” Whisper greeted them all.
“Lord Valance, is it?” Breac growled. “The name’s Sunfist. The Little Warriors got your report, but it was a little light on details. You mentioned a portal, opening from a wall below your city?”
“Indeed,” Whisper nodded. “Our temple folk appear powerless to stop it, as it’s intermittent. It tends to unform itself whenever anyone of sufficient favour with the divine comes close. My fear is that may be evidence it is being controlled by something intelligent.”
“You were right to call us, lad. Let’s take a look and get this over with.”
“Of course. It’s not far.” Whisper led them quickly down a servant corridor, and to a large wine cabinet. “These secret passages were installed by kings of the past to help them, well, circumvent certain other rooms in the palace.”
“They helped them sneak about into the chambermaids quarters, we get it,” Adele rolled her eyes.
Whisper pulled on a small, apparently empty bottle, which served as a lever, and the wine cabinet turned on itself to reveal a passage deeper into the palace proper. But there was another, smaller passage leading down towards a series of cellars, from which blew a deathly cold draft. “This way, please,” he beckoned them.
Breac stopped him with one hand. “Lord Valance…thank you for bringing this to our attention. Remain here, please. It’s best you let the guard captains know we’re here and what we’re doing, in case things get loud and violent.”
Oh, Breac. That was almost diplomatic. Whisper couldn’t help but gush with some pride at his old student. “Of course,” he bowed slightly, before retreating and allowing them past. He forced himself to walk back calmly in the direction of the main court, before darting into a shadowy alcove and opening his mind’s eye, following the Little Warriors as they descended.
“What’s the odds that was him?” Adele quipped.
“That the one who brought us here was Will…I mean, Whisper, all along?” Breac clarified. “Odds are high. They’re really, really high.”
“You don’t want to go back and check to be sure?” Leonard asked.
“I’m sure. If that’s him, and we fight him aboveground, there’ll be civilians involved. Aside from the problems of fighting Lord Willaim Freakin’ Bregan anywhere near a crowd of people he can hide in, there’s the matter of collateral damage. I hate to think Lord Bregan’s so far gone that he’d open up with destructive magic around civilians, but if what Prius told us is true, we want to keep this fight away from everyone else.”
Ah, sentiment. It never did stop luring Little Warriors to their deaths. Whisper gleefully teleported to his circle belowground, waited for Breac and company to trigger a set of silent alarms, and unleashed his trap.
The room they entered was suddenly doused in darkness. By the time Breac reacted to dispel the effect, walls of mirrors had descended into place, creating a maze, cutting off the three Little Warriors from each other, and the three Pizol Rangers in another cluster off on their own. Whisper turned towards another mirror in his private quarters, stepped into the Realm of Reflection, and began hunting.
William had never thought much of Leonard Wildtalon. Of all his tribe, he had been the most aloof, the most disdainful of any force beyond his understanding. Which was most forces in existence, being honest. Possibly including gravity. It wasn’t difficult to lure Leonard deeper into the mirror maze with mere cantrips and simple audible misdirection, the sound of a footfall here, the thud of a hand striking a mirror there. The barbarian roared in frustration. His roar echoing through the room was the last anyone ever heard from him, as Whisper stepped out of a mirror behind him and hurled a bolt of null energy at him, deleting him from reality, then looked for his next target.
He wasn’t particularly impressed with the strength of mind of the three Pizol Rangers. It took all of half a minute of harassing them with half-heard traces of laughter and cold winds before they were jumping at everything resembling a shadow, and from there the downfall of their minds was swift and savage. He first convinced Pel that Shera was actually dead, and the person in her form an imposter trying to kill him. Shera screamed quite loudly as Pel’s saber pierced her chest, causing Hest to whirl on the pair – and Whisper took that opportunity to wrap Pel in an illusionary duplicate of himself, causing Hest to respond by removing Pel’s head from his shoulders.
“Nope! He’s not the imposter either,” Whisper called out as he stepped out of the shadows. “Ah…third time lucky? No, that’s not how this game works.” And he snapped his fingers, causing Hest’s heart to explode in his chest, before seizing his axe out of the air and bringing it down onto the prone form of Shera. Pel’s saber had only pierced her lungs, so the poor dear hadn’t even died cleanly from her companion’s idiocy. Whisper almost felt sorry for her as he put her out of her misery. They weren’t dead beyond recovery, Breac could likely resurrect all three. Assuming the preacher survived himself. Which he probably wouldn’t.
Adele Gerrywood had learned much since William had last seen her. She had not panicked when Whisper flooded the room with darkness. Her breath had noticeably caught when she had been separated from her companions, but she had continued to think clearly. When Whisper turned the walls to mirrors, she had responded by simply breaking every mirror in sight, and anticipating Whisper would try to animate the glass shards she had animated a cloud of her own, and held it about her as a shield.
But it was all a bit too passive. She was reacting, trying to counter all of Whisper’s moves without making any of her own. And there was no countering the death out of time.
Levitating several inches off the floor, Whisper’s feet made no sound on the glass shards as he approached, while Adele’s made an audible crunch despite her best efforts. He waited until he heard her begin to step away from him, rounded a corner, and closed in on her unprotected back.
“Psst, whatcha looking for?” he hissed in her ear. And as she turned in shock, he grasped her forehead and began to erase her from time. Her eyes widened, then turned grey and empty. Her skin turned translucent, showing her veins and muscles and even organs. Her lungs emptied in a sad, hollow sigh. And then she exploded into a dull grey whisp of light, not even a memory remaining.
Well. That was easy. He turned away…and came face to face with Breac Sunfist.
His old friend and student stood, mouth agape. He had never really wanted to believe that Lord William Bregan had become a mass murderer. That now indisputable fact, standing before him, stunned the dwarf more than any spell ever could. He looked ridiculous. Whisper could only grin in amusement at the sight, as he reached out to pin Breac’s mind and compel him to walk closer. Come here, he beckoned, and his god beckoned through him. You can’t hide from me.
Breac’s eyes went glassy as Whisper’s charm struck true, but some sliver of willpower must have remained, as his hands fumbled for his shield token. Whisper tightened his mental grip, tried to drive a spike of energy into the priest’s mind – but too late. Breac’s body turned and twisted into the space between spaces, and then there was a pop of displaced air rushing into where he had been an instant before.
Crap. Still, that was two out of three. William’s incessant whining was barely a presence now, the slightest of pressures on the back of Whisper’s mind. A shame – if he’d managed to destroy Breac as well, the daft fool would probably have given up and vanished entirely. He’d have to wait a little longer for that. He whistled as he climbed back up the stairs, the mess of shattered glass left behind him already forgotten. As he whistled, he let his mind sing aimlessly into the aether.
I was walking along, minding my business,
When out of the orange colored sky,
Flash!
Bam!
Alacazam!
Wonderful you came by...
“Hey!” a voice called as he opened the door at the top of the stairs. “Who are you? How’d you get in here?”
He’d also forgotten, in the excitement, that he’d lured the Little Warriors downstairs under the guise of a member of the nobility. Oh, well. So much for a clean getaway. “Do you not recognize me?” he asked sweetly, grinning wildly over steepled fingers and paying no mind to the polearm being levelled at his nose. “We will have to change that. I’ve been instructed by my god to make myself feared and memorable, and that’s a command I intend to follow to the letter.”
Whisper reached out to grasp as many minds of the Royal Guard of Kolostia as he could. Without William’s meddling, he was able to command an astonishing number of them, almost a third. So he commanded them to kill the royal family, the nobles, the servants, and everyone else in the palace they could reach. And then, continuing to whistle a merry tune, he began to open a portal to the Abyss – a real one, this time – to bring in some outside help and make sure of the job.
The people of Kolostia did not survive the night.
***************
0.0.10 before Guildfall
“I WISH YOU’D FADE INTO NOTHING!!!...”
Whisper woke with a start. Same old dream. William and the Abyrrus in a battle of wills in the dreamworld again. He forced himself to breathe slowly, working past the terror that followed the scene, as William disappeared, he saw the Abyrrus slain and thrown back into the Nightmare, and Whisper himself was left formless, voiceless, wondering ‘who am I?’.
It didn’t matter who he was then. What was important was that he knew William Bregan would eventually fade to nothing. At some point in time – the idiot Abyrrus hadn’t specified a time when he made his wish. Patience, he could almost hear Nathrael say in comfort. That time would come. And then there would only be Whisper. Left to serve his god, presumably, without William’s pesky interruptions.
He turned over in his thin, hard bed at one of the many inns in Tanquary Bay. A succubus, in the guise of a local tavern girl, was standing over him, one hand reached out towards where his back had been.
“Oh, Amesta, if I knew you were coming I’d have dressed,” Whisper teased her as he roughly seized her mind in an enchantment. This wasn’t the first succubae that would have been sent to kill him by some jealous would-be servant of Nathrael that didn’t understand the true lay of the land.
“I was sent to wake you,” she explained. “It’s time.”
Whisper dropped his spell and spun out of bed and straight to his feet, scrambling for his trademark black trousers and tunic. It had been just over a year since he had revealed his identity, and finally Nathrael’s master plan was beginning to take shape. Rhillaine had been unable to discern the nature of four ancient artifacts she had been carefully led to over the past year, and true to form she had gathered them all together within her library in the guild hall. Once assembled, it wouldn’t be long before those artifacts revealed their secrets in truly spectacular fashion.
The artifacts each contained a sliver of the essence of Nathrael himself.
“The last relic,” Whisper asked desperately. “What’s the latest scry on the hall? Did it work? Was the Abyrrus able to find a host?”
“We think so, Whisper,” Amesta replied gently. “But there’s no way of knowing who that someone is. We can only give you a divining rod to help find them. If you concentrate, it should work while you’re polymorphed, as you requested.” She produced what looked like a small branch of willow tree.
“You sweet, sweet dear.” Whisper gently kissed her on the forehead as he grasped the willow branch and wrapped his Cloak of the Mountebank around him. He then pulled out his magic carpet, made himself and the carpet invisible, and flew out the window just after Amesta frantically opened it for him and dove out of his way.
It wasn’t far by flight from Tanquary to the Guild Hall, and under Whisper’s command his carpet could reach speeds envied by any dragon. He tore through the sky like a bolt of lightning, but forced himself to slow as he spotted the near abandoned town of Galleytown, the ruined docks, the top of the Tower of the Magi lost in a low-hanging fog cloud, and the gates of the Guild Hall overgrown with vines and overcome with rust. No one had opened those gates in decades – why bother, when the World Tree allowed its inhabitants to teleport everywhere?
Whisper could barely contain his excitement. Soon, he would ensure no one would ever open those gates again. Who knew? Maybe, after Nathrael rewrote reality, there wouldn’t even be such a thing as gates!
Patience. He forced himself to take a deep breath. The defenses of the guild hall were formidable. Gus had not overlooked the threat of attack from Elanora itself. It just wasn’t his focus, for obvious reasons. The world was a sodden dump. There was nothing of interest here except the Hall. He landed just outside the courtyard, dispelled a silent alarm on the gate, and climbed over into the courtyard, keeping to the shadows. Invisibility spells and other traditional illusions were of no use here.
It was empty, as usual. Nothing much here except some old ruins, relics of the guild’s oldest days before they began to use the World Tree to carve themselves interdimensional palaces into the space between spaces. There was a goliath standing guard at the main entrance, but Whisper knew there’d be a shift change soon. There used to be two guards, but as the Little Warriors got complacent…
Or, perhaps, stretched thin? William suggested. Whisper gave a start, and mentally stomped on the co-owner of his body until he imagined it agreeing to shut up.
By the time Whisper got control of himself, the shift change had occurred, and a dark-haired halfling dressed in green wool and plates of leather was settling in. One of Wintergreen’s latest recruits. Whisper casually stepped into the open and approached her.
“Hello, dearie,” he said her carefully prepared trigger word.
Thea Embersun’s eyes glazed over in response, and she pulled out a small sack. “One of Damien’s creepy seeker-wasps.” she said dreamily as she handed it too him. “Just like you ordered.”
“You’re a doll,” Whisper grinned. “Now, you will remember none of this.”
“I will remember none of this,” Thea agreed, as Whisper stepped lightly around her and into the hall proper. He pulled an odd, spindly machine out of the sack and began rapidly tinkering with it. In response to Whisper’s betrayal, Damien Ironbrand had created these blasted contraptions. He had aimed to make a perfect Whisper-proof scout, and he had very nearly succeeded. Each machine was armed with truesight sensors, faerie dust, multiple moonbeam charges, beholder-eye powered anti-magic field generators, and a set of adamantine mandibles that could cut through his psychic shield like it were paper. And there were swarms of the damned things scanning every living thing they could find in there, down to the cockroaches.
But like most of Damien’s inventions, they were designed to work with some efficiency. They didn’t scan each other. Whisper pulled out the lens on the truesight sensor, turned himself into a locust – he flatly refused to take the form of a cockroach – and slipped inside as the machine activated. It would detect a fault, and attempt to return to Damien’s laboratory for maintenance. But if Whisper remembered his lessons on mechanical arcana right, he should be able to steer it from within…
The mechanical wasp took off, passing two more that were headed to the courtyard to scan poor Thea. As expected, the other machines paid him no mind. He felt odd twinges within his stomach, as the willow wand Amesta had given him had melded with his locust form and sent sparks of…something…through his body, directing him further inwards. He tried not to think too much about how the divining rod achieved this.
He allowed the wasp to fly on its own, through the outer checkpoint, more heavily guarded by grim-faced knights from Braeland and protected by various glyphs of warding, and into the open space of the Guild Tavern. It was bustling with activity, with some members appearing to choke on ball-bearings that had mysteriously made their way into their ale mugs. They began grasping around their legs, as a young, pink-haired halfling girl darted about evading them, cackling with laughter…
Is that Prius’ daughter, Miko? William wondered with astonishment. My, how she’s grown…
Shut up, shut up, shut up…Whisper replied.
From here, the drone appeared insistent on travelling further into the guild hall and past the World Tree chamber, but Whisper had no intention of testing the all-seeing vigil of the guild man-at-arms, Ser Knight. He guided the drone instead according to the twinges of pressure he felt from the willow wand, to another corridor, past a dusty red dragonborn head-down in paperwork at a desk, and to the second door on the right...
NO, NO, NOT HIM.
Shut up.
The wand was not mistaken. Whoever the Abyrrus spirit catching a ride on the last artifact had been, they had possessed whoever was in this room. Within the poor fool’s mind, they would rest. Waiting for Whisper to shatter the hosts mind. And then they would take over. As they had done with William.
Whisper, still in the form of a locust, clambered out of the wasp and onto its face. He dropped from there to the floor, and quickly darted inside under the door, allowing his drone to finally buzz its way back to Damien Ironbrand’s care. He resumed his human form and raised his hand to the halfling seated at the low slung, stone table in the center of the room, and unleashed his spell.
Charles Penrose flinched as the feeblemind spell struck and shattered his mind. And then Charles grinned. “Oh, you’re good,” he laughed.
It was the personal nature of his betrayal that made him feel such horror. Enough to trigger an identity change. William stood before his old friend, his student and successor, the guild’s new spymaster. He grappled with the shame and sadness, he grappled inwardly with Whisper, who snarled and snapped and grasped desperately to regain mental control.
“What, you didn’t expect to make it this far?” Charles asked. “Neither did I. But here you are, and here I am, only a week before the long-awaited Guildfall. Excuse me a moment…”
Still scrambling to maintain control of himself, William Bregan didn’t even notice Charles pull a sending stone from his belt before it was too late. And just like that, the keys to the Teleportation circle and all the Guild’s defenses had been reported to the succubus, Amesta, waiting back in their room in Tanquary Bay.
William had held Whisper off as long as he could. And now, that no longer mattered.
“Well, that’s done!” Charles grinned. “Celebratory drink?”
It occurred to William that, if he was very, very careful, he could play along. Allow Charles to think it was still Whisper in control. And then, maybe, he’d have a chance to…what? Slip a message to Rhillaine to warn her? Even thinking about the possibility sent his brain into a tailspin, threatening to return Whisper to the fore once more. But the thought of Charles…Charles…being the one remembered as the man who destroyed the Little Warriors filled him with dread and dismay. He did not deserve this!
I…agree, Whisper answered. He does not deserve this.
Forcing himself to relax, William took a seat and accepted a glass of rare, ruby colored spirits from Faerûn and smiled back at Charles. “So, busy week?” he asked. “What’s your plan from here?”
“Plan?” Charles scoffed. “Like I said, no one expected you to actually succeed tonight, so there’s no ‘plan’. Plan was to have Nathrael bust the door open and let us in. But as that’s no longer required…I was thinking of steeling one of Damien’s time traps and leaving it outside Rhillaine’s library! So the first thing that happens after she opens the 4-piece box of doom is, she runs screaming into the hallway, then blinks and finds herself in a smoking crater where her guild hall used to be.”
“Hilarious,” William grinned. “Can I assist?”
“No! Whisper…you’ve done wonderfully. But your part in this is over. Go back to Pandemonium! The master is waiting for you.”
“For a week?” William objected. “I’m already in here. Surely I can be of further use here?”
“There’s a horde of drones all custom made by none other than Damien Freakin’ Ironbrand himself to hunt you down. One of them could be here any minute. And you want to stick around?” Charles’ eyes narrowed. “What more are you trying to accomplish here? The dice are rolling. Guildfall is inevitable. You’ve won. We’ve won.”
“I’ll celebrate when I see we’ve won.”
“Oh, ho ho!” Charles chortled in realization. “This is just too good! I’m not talking to Whisper here, am I? I’m talking to the other one.”
William stiffened. The air grew tense, naught but a loaded hesitation holding the two men back from each other. “Why him?” William asked. “Why Charles?”
“Charles isn’t here at the moment,” the Abyrrus mocked him from Charles’ body. “Please leave a message after…nope, that won’t work either. You never were much of a teacher. So where your mind clung on like some bloody barnacle for the past two years, poor Charles’ mind just went…pop!”
“Why him?” William demanded. “There are a hundred Little Warriors in this hall, most of them prideful, greedy glory hounds. Why not put them to use?”
“Because that’s not nearly as fun!” Charles clapped his hands together with glee, and William felt a chill through his spine as his successor steepled his fingers before his chest. It felt suddenly like he was looking into a mirror. “We were never interested in destroying the Little Warriors, Mr High Lord Bregan. We’re here to destroy their idea. Charles is loved, and respected, far more so than you ever were. He’s also your student, which means he’s weak-minded, and pathetic. When they see for themselves that there is no strength in humility, that preaching ‘without fear or favor’ isn’t going to shield them from being turned into a meat puppet by someone with true willpower…well, it might be wishful thinking that this event alone will cause them to abandon Damien and his idiocy. But it’ll help.”
William was still too stunned by the enormity of what he’d just done to reply. Until Charles, with one last, cocky grin, got up from his chair and walked to the office door.
Everything I’ve worked for, Whisper raged inside William’s skull. All my effort. All my endeavors. And after this, they won’t even remember me. They’ll just remember him.
William didn’t know what to make of that, but he knew Charles Penrose deserved better than to be remembered as a traitor. He raised a hand and sealed the door, preparing his own mental defences, but the Abyrrus had no intention of fighting William mind-to-mind. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Charles summoned a ghostly hand as large as a minotaur, grabbed William with it and slammed him down into the stone table in the center of the room.
There was a sharp crack, and William’s vision blurred. He had raised a psychic shield to cushion the blow in time, but it still knocked the wind out of him, and cracked the granite stone of the table in two. He blinked, scrambled to his feet, and for that instant both William and Whisper – albeit for vastly different reasons – were in agreement. This needed to be done.
Together, they grasped death from beyond time as Nathrael had taught them, and hurdled a grey bolt of nothingness at Charles Penrose. And they removed him from existence. Not even a memory remained. No one, except Whisper/William, would ever recall anything about Charles Penrose again.
William gasped, more from emotion than effort, as he considered his options. He still had control of his identity, but only barely. He dared not risk informing any of his friends, lest Whisper take the reins once more. Anything he did would need to be carefully orchestrated so that his dark opposite would, if not approve, then at least accept the action.
His old team would come for him, surely, once they realized he had killed their spymaster. Whatever was left of his old team. It might only be Breac now.
We could trap them, Whisper offered. Destroy Breac Sunfist, and your journey to oblivion will be complete.
That could work. Especially if the trap worked both ways, and prevented Whisper from escaping as well. One last fight. He and Sunfist would enter. And one way or another, only one of them would walk away. It might not save the guild from what he and Charles had just done, but if Breac killed him, at least they’d face Nathrael’s forces without Whisper’s interference.
Together, William/Whisper crept out of the guild hall, and fled to Dingaford.
****************
0.0.7 before Guildfall
William had led them back to his home in Dingaford. Taking care not to do anything obviously harmful to Whisper’s plans, he had held onto control of their odd identity system for several days. During this time, the two of them worked together to place traps and glyphs throughout the theatre, and to create enchanted borders that prevented anyone teleporting out or in. They turned Dingaford into a macabre colosseum, a giant death trap. A trap for William, Whisper and Little Warrior alike. Then they waited for Breac to assemble a team and come for him.
Which didn’t take long.
But at the end, while William had tried his hardest to passively accept the judgement of the Little Warriors, Whisper just couldn’t bring himself to go out that quietly. And so he found himself now in a duel to the death with seven adventurers, led by Breac himself. And a pair of guard dogs. Whisper hated dogs, and he had no idea what the Little Warriors were thinking bringing them, but he hadn’t found the time to kill them yet.
Sedrut and Breac had already fallen, their bodies evaporating into the grey mist of non-existence. The Little Warriors were wearing their shield tokens over their hearts, preventing Whisper from unmaking them entirely, so he still had to win the day to ensure Wintergreen wouldn’t just reincarnate the both of them. But that was a possibility. The edges of the theatre rippled with illusion, the ceiling exploded with fire, and the statues he had brought to life were still mostly intact and making a wonderful mess of things on the theatre floor.
He also had three of the survivors, Grievely, Pooka and Silverblade, caught in an enchantment. An echo of Sedrut had risen and was proceeding to stab away at Whisper’s foes, and an echo of Breac wouldn’t be far behind.
Whisper was battered, but so were they. Sedrut’s dagger slipped under Anara’s defenses and they both went down. Whisper attempted to unmake Grievely, only to have his spell countered by Varus, but the novice wizard paid for his efforts and fell, clasping his head. With the other three adventurers still standing enthralled by his image in the center of the room, Whisper felt comfortable he had accounted for everyone, and readied one final spell…
From behind him, he heard several angry barks, and he cursed himself. How had he managed to overlook those damned dogs! He spun, his spell abandoned, as he tried to swat the beasts away, but his injuries were substantial and he was just a fraction too slow.
And he went down under their weight, and died thrashing in pain as the dogs tore his throat out.
