Adventure Log, Session 21, A Game of Shards, Part 3
General Summary
They had found the secret door, where presumably the Lerial-thing had come from. Placing his ear against the stone, Eykit listened at it, and could hear what sounded like muffled conversation. He was unable to make out any words, however.
Eykit pushed it open, revealing a short, brick-lined corridor that turned to the right after about two meters.
The group, moving as stealthily as they could, made their way into the hallway in single file.
Around the corner, a short hallway opened onto a bookshelf lined study, with a pair of wingback chairs with ottomans, and a large desk with a chair behind it. Papers were strewn on the desk, pages of notes and scribblings, along with a few books. Eykit, Elitheris, and Almë entered into the study, looking around with curiosity. Taid stayed at the corner of the hallway, poised to watch in either direction. He suspected that the servants, or something worse, might come and attack them from the rear.
Two doors, one on each side of the room, led to other areas. The conversation that the Goblin had heard seemed to be coming from the door on the right, so he listened more closely at it. Amongst the garbled words, he was only able to make out “It’s time, they are coming.”
Elitheris listened at the other door, but heard nothing. When she tried the door, it was locked. When Eykit tried the door he was at, it was also locked. A locked door, to Eykit, was an invitation, not an obstacle. He picked it quietly and easily. After his last couple of attempts, he was very thankful that his lock picking skills hadn’t failed him. If he had fumbled at this door too, he would have been shamed in front of his companions.
He glanced back at the others, miming opening the door. They nodded, and he cracked it open. As it opened into the study, he was able to peek out into the adjacent room.
He saw what looked like a medical facility mixed with a meat packing plant. Two articulated surgical tables, complete with movable arm and leg supports, sat in the middle of the room, and a track on the ceiling ran between them. Several meat hooks hung from the track, along with some chains with straps.
The voice that had been speaking was quiet now, but he could hear movement from around the corner, where his view of the room was blocked. He crept out, and looked around the corner.
He saw the rest of the room. The other half of the room looked like a morgue, with two rows of three morgue drawers along the far back wall. In front of those were three metal autopsy tables, with drains.
But standing between the surgical tables and the autopsy tables was a…thing. It looked something like the Lerial-thing did, except slightly more human. Then he saw what was attached to it at the hip: a woman’s head, face up, her back arched so her legs could touch the ground in a crab-wise manner. Her left arm held a mace. It was unclothed, and Eykit could see the muscle fibers shifting on it. The joining place where the woman’s head met the man’s thigh looked decidedly cancerous and ropy. Crystals, Shards, were attached on each of the limbs.
Not quite what the Hoskins-Thing looks like, but it gets the idea across
It attacked, grabbing Eykit by both upper arms, and lifted him up. As he rose, he was able to see past the monstrosity: Herbert Vesten stood by a desk at the side wall, casting some spell. But the mage wasn’t what what forefront in Eykit’s mind, nor was the fact that he was being picked up like a small child. No, what disturbed him the most was the fact that he knew this man, this creature. He didn’t know him well, and couldn’t remember speaking to him, but he knew his face. This was Hoskins, a beggar and informant used by the New Square Skulls as one of their sets of eyes and ears. Oh, Hoskins, what has this bastard done to you? he thought. But that’s as much compassion as he could spare, because either the creature was going to pull him apart, throw him across the room, or impale him on one of those hooks that so conveniently hung behind him. Panic started welling up from the recesses from which it had retreated to, bubbling and foaming and threatening to make him freeze up. He screamed, and while it started off as a terrified squeal it changed somehow to defiance as he managed to get his fears under control.
Hearing the scream, Almë rushed into the room, followed by Mr. Wiggles and Elitheris. The dog ran in, clamping his teeth on the thing’s leg, just under where the woman’s head was attached. Mr. Wiggles whined as he felt the shifting muscle fibers moving past his teeth like animate dental floss. But he didn’t let go, and clamped his jaws down even more firmly.
Almë charged into combat, his staff striking the creature on the Shard that emerged from a fleshy socket on the arm, but aside from making the arm shake for an instant, the blow did nothing to it.
Shards were, as most people knew, indestructible. That’s why there had been several attempts to use them as weapons, such as spearpoints, or arrowheads. The attempt to use them as arrowheads failed miserably, however, as no one wanted to loose them; that would mean giving up a Shard, and that was just too difficult. It took great strength of will to willingly give up Shards. They had that effect on people. So much so that it still made people wonder why the strong simply didn’t take them. They seemingly both amplified a focused greed for them while simultaneously damping violent reactions.
Elitheris moved around Almë, having to go around one of the surgical tables in order to get a clear shot at the…whatever it was. Zombie? Conjoined twins? But as she did so, the mage came into view. He stood there, chanting softly, a skull held under one arm. Her target instantly became Herbert; perhaps if she killed him, the monster would drop dead. Oftentimes, magic worked like that, and there was no way that thing was able to live without magic! Her arrow leapt from her bow, but the casting mage had been expecting it and dodged to the side, and the missile thwunked into the back of a standing cabinet, punching a splintered hole in it.
Eykit did not want to be in this thing’s grasp. He kicked, as his hands were pinned to his sides by the strength of the Hoskins-thing. His boots thudded into the creature’s chest, and aside from a slight exhale, did nothing to it. His leverage was bad, and his legs were short. Things didn’t look good for Eykit.
Taid ran into the room, but his halberd got hung up on the doorframe, throwing him off balance and fouling his attack. Cursing in guttural Northern Khuzdûl, he unhooked the axe blade from the doorframe and got his halberd properly into the room. The axe had left a mark on the doorway’s trim, and a part of his mind told him it served Vesten right.
Almë attacked again, but it was parried by the mace held in the woman’s hand. His second attack connected, this time on the elbow. It seemed to do some damage, but the thing didn’t drop Eykit. Instead, it lifted Eykit over its head, turning to try to hang Eykit on one of the hooks.
Eykit, meanwhile, didn’t really want to end up impaled on a hook. He kicked out again, squirming, hitting the Hoskins-thing in the chest again. But the leverage was still bad, so it was mostly ineffectual. But he wasn’t going out without a fight! Even if it was ineffectual, he was going to try.
Taid yelled “Duck!” to Almë, and swung his halberd at the creature’s arm. He severed it, the arm and hand staying attached to Eykit’s upper arm, ineffectually squeezing his shoulder with its fingers. But this altered the thing’s plans, as the now uneven weight of Eykit pulled downward and to the side, the one arm unable to keep Eykit’s weight over its head. It at least delayed Eykit’s impalement.
Elitheris skirted the battle, wanting to go for Herbert. She loosed another arrow, this time at Herbert’s face.
Herbert, however, was prepared, and didn’t want any more facial wounds, and was able to dodge the arrow by leaping out of the way. But now things were getting out of hand. He tossed the skull into the air, and it exploded into blue flame, the skull wreathed in a fiery halo. It hung there for a moment, as if the blue flaming skull was looking for a target, then hurtled through the air towards the group.
Eykit had a hand free, now that he was only being held by one arm, and he pawed at the hanging hook, grasping it in his fingers. Holding onto it would drastically reduce the chances of being impaled upon it.
Elitheris drew another arrow, nocking it on her bowstring.
Taid scurried past the abomination, going around it on its left, with the same idea that Elitheris had: if the necromancer died, maybe his magics would die with him. He sincerely felt that Maggie needed to drink necromancer blood.
The flaming skull spirit arced towards Taid, but he leapt and spun, twisting out of the way of the skull as it hurtled past him, passing silently through the wall behind him and into the study.
The mace held by the woman rose and fell, slamming into the back of Mr. Wiggles’s neck. The poor pup was knocked down, his toothy grip on the creature’s leg coming loose. Fortunately, he had armor, so the iron flanged mace didn’t turn him into paste, although he did yelp in pain and surprise.
Mr. Wiggles’s canine brain assessed the threat, and jumped up, grabbing onto the woman’s wrist just above the haft of the mace. He weighed about 20 kilos, and made the woman struggle to use the mace.
Elitheris loosed another arrow, aiming again for Herbert’s face, but she missed as he ducked, the arrow glancing off of the top one of the autopsy tables.
Eykit got his other arm on the hook, and tried to pull free of the thing’s grasp. He wasn’t successful; the thing’s strength was too great.
Almë struck at it again, his staff whirring through the air, but it was deflected.
Then Almë slammed his staff into the backs of its knees sweeping Hoskins’s legs out from under him, and that part of the creature fell to its knees, dragging the woman along clumsily. The woman, pulled down by Hoskins’s collapse to its knees, managed to stay more or less upright, or at least as about as upright as it had been.
It’s grip lessened, Eykit took the opportunity to wriggle free. He hung from the meat hook, swinging back and forth. He pried the hand and forearm off of his shoulder with a shudder. He’d expected it to fall off of its own accord once it had been severed, but the grasping hand had still tried to squeeze his shoulder. He’d likely have a spread of fingerprint bruises on both shoulders.
Taid was in range of Herbert, and he lunged, but Herbert stepped back in response, watching as Taid’s halberd point came within inches of piercing him in the heart. It was good timing, the deep lunge dropped Taid’s head low enough that the skull spirit, emerging through the wall behind him, flew harmlessly over him. It was lucky. Taid hadn’t even known it was coming.
The flaming skull was eerily silent. It made no sound, not even the roaring of flames. It circled for another attack. The necromancer realized that his initial spell he wanted to cast would take too long, so he changed to a quicker one.
“Enough of this crap,” Elitheris muttered softly, as she pulled Maica Melehtë (Piercing Might) out of its sheath at her side. She ran towards the mage, frustrated that he was able to avoid her arrows.
The Hoskins-thing, it’s prey no longer in its grasp, struck out with its fist, slamming it into Almë’s arm. Fortunately for Almë, he was wearing padded armor, and the knobby fist only caused what would later become a large bruise.
The skull was still flying around, trying to hit Taid, but the wily Dwarf evaded its touch yet again. How long he could keep it up, he didn’t know. But it was fast, faster than most people could sprint. They may be able to dodge out of its way, but they wouldn’t be able to outrun it. And it had the advantage of being able to move through objects without slowing down.
Almë struck twice in quick succession, a quick alternating pair of hits with first one end of the staff, then the other. Both strikes slammed the metal-shod wood into the creature’s chest. Almë thought he heard some ribs crack, but the room was filled with all kinds of noises, so he wasn’t sure.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep away from the quickly flying, silent skull that seemed to have his name on its naughty list, Taid dropped his halberd and charged at the mage, arms out and ready to tackle him. This was unexpected, and Herbert wasn’t fast enough to evade. Taid’s strong arms wrapped around him, squeezing him against his steel breastplate. In the process, Taid spun him about. He had seen Elitheris running towards him with her knife glinting in the lamplight, and put Herbert’s back to her, giving her a great opportunity.
Herbert was, if nothing else, a very level-headed person. He hadn’t gone through what he did socially and financially to lose his cool now, and so he was able to keep casting even as a frenzied Dwarf ran into him. The Spell of Sleeping went off, but to his surprise, the Dwarf seemed to barely feel it.
Taid grinned at him, his teeth glinting from within his beard, as he stood nose to nose with the necromancer. “Fuck you very much,” the Dwarf said, a smug grin on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blue flames coming at him again. He spun the mage again, interposing him between the skull and himself. “Eat your own skull!”
“No!” Herbert cried in alarm.
The skull hit him, and the mage screamed. The skull passed through his chest, and he could feel its chilling touch in the muscles, bones, and organs. He felt his muscles clench painfully, as the icy touch worked its way through his body from front to back.
The skull spirit went through both Herbert and Taid. Taid felt it go through him, as well. The same chilling touch that worked its way through his upper chest and neck, his heart skipping a beat as the blue flames pulled heat from his body. He shivered in its wake. It had gone right through Herbert, and through his armor. Like a ghost.
Eykit, swinging on the hook like a pendulum, had pulled out his knife. On the upswing, he let go, arcing towards the Hoskins-thing, coming down on its leg knife-point first. It carved into the muscle, and as it sliced downward, Eykit could see the twisting, rootlike muscle fibers parting one by one.
It fell to one knee. Mr. Wiggles, still clamped onto the woman’s wrist, bit hard. The creature fell, the Hoskins portion flat onto its face, the woman portion following along, turning onto her side. Both were mostly motionless, at least in overall movement. The tissues continued to writhe. “That’s disgusting.” he stated.
Almë, not completely sure it was dead, decided to make sure with a strong overhand strike to its skull. It cracked, although unlike Lerial’s, didn’t splatter like an overripe melon.
Taid head butted Herbert, his legionary helmet’s nasal guard making an imprint on the mage’s forehead. Herbert’s head snapped back, and he let out a guttural cry of pain.
The blue flaming skull, having emerged from Herbert and Taid, came flying at Elitheris. She dove forward, under the blue flaming flying thing, tucking into a roll, and came back up onto her feet, the skull meters behind her. And now she was right there with Taid and Herbert. Her arm snapped out, the dagger flashed, and it went into Herbert’s chest just under the armpit. The sharp, enchanted blade slid through his clothing as if it weren’t there, between a pair of ribs, through first one lung then the other, grazing the heart along the way. There was a short grunt or exhalation, and Herbert’s body went limp in Taid’s arms. He was dead before Elitheris pulled the knife from between his ribs.
Eykit, meanwhile, had no intention of letting the Hoskins-thing live again, if that were possible. And all of the indications showed that the still-squirming flesh tendrils were trying to reanimate the body. He started cutting out the controlling Shard from the woman’s back. It was then that he noticed that her Shard was connected to a Shard on Hoskins’ leg, forming a Shard pair. He got busy with his knife digging them out, every once in a while looking up to check where that flaming skull was. It wouldn’t do to be surprised by that silently swooping skull. And his Goblin hearing, good as it was, wouldn’t help him with that.
Almë ran towards where the severed arm lay between the two surgical tables. He planned to use it to batter the flying skull. He could see tendrils or roots of bloody flesh trying to crawl towards the main bulk of the Hoskins-thing. Likely to try and reattach itself. He’d heard that troll flesh did that, but he hadn’t seen it himself. Trolls lived in more mountainous areas than where he grew up.
Taid let the dead body of the necromancer drop; it didn’t make a useful shield against that the skull anyway. He pulled his shortsword out of its scabbard. He kept his eye on the floating skull as it turned around for another pass.
Elitheris saw it arc around then plunge through her chest. Its icy touch made her curl into herself as it passed through her flesh, chilling it, making her feel like her heart had turned to ice. The cold clutched at her, and she had trouble breathing. But that didn’t stop her; she had already begun the motion. She spun, the knife out and thrusting through the blue flames. It had the consistency of mist, and she could see tatters of flames following her blade as it passed through the ghost-like skull.
Almë stooped as he ran, scooping up the arm by the severed end, the hand flopping limply. He felt something—lots of somethings, actually—touching his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, for he didn’t want to take his eyes off of the flaming skull, he could see the muscle fibers that had been reaching toward the main body now wrapping themselves around his fingers. It was unnerving. It was like putting his hand in a bucket of live, sticky worms.
It came around again, and Taid slashed at it with his sword. Like Elitheris, tatters of flames showed where the sword cut through the insubstantial skull. But there seemed to be more of the “tatters” when he cut through it than when Elitheris tried to put a hole in it.
As if reacting to the attack by the Dwarf, the skull spirit changed course again and dove through him. He grunted in pain, the feeling of an icy hand gripping his heart. It was a cold that lingered, and seemed to pull his body heat into a small, cold ball.
Eykit still worked on carving the Shard cluster out of the woman’s back and Hoskins’ leg. It was foul work, the tough fleshy tendrils didn’t want to be cut, and it seemed to Eykit that they kept reinforcing themselves every time he made progress. But he kept sawing at them.
The skull spun about and flew at Elitheris; she swiped at it as it came at her. Shreds of flames appeared to be pulled from the skull as the blade swept downward, just as it passed through the Elven woman again. She gritted her teeth as she forcefully bit back a scream of pain.
As it emerged from Elitheris’ back, Almë swung the severed arm like a floppy club, but the skull was too fast for him, and he missed with his clumsy, makeshift weapon.
“Maybe a larger weapon will hurt it more!” Taid shouted, as he dove and rolled for his halberd, which had been lying on the floor where he had dropped it.
Elitheris slashed at the flaming skull as it flew past, ripping flames from it. She couldn’t tell, since it was covered in flames and moving too fast, but small cracks were appearing on the skull, as if the repeated slices were damaging it, despite the weapons passing right through it.
It was headed towards Almë, and he managed to swing the arm through it as it came at him. The hand passed through it, appearing to claw flames from its body, just before the skull spirit dove through the gardener’s chest. Almë tried to dodge to the side, but was unsuccessful, but the skull didn’t pass through his heart, just a lung. He coughed in pain as the cold clutched at his tissues.
Finally, Eykit freed the Shard cluster from the knot of twisted flesh, and the woman fell away from Hoskins. Her flesh was still. Hoskins’ flesh was still squirming about, still trying to reorganize into something more optimized.
Again Elitheris slashed at the flaming skull at it came at her. It tried to move out of the way of her knife, but she was faster and altered her strike so that it slashed right through its left eye socket. It seemed to dip momentarily, but that was likely just wishful thinking on her part.
As the skull flew past on its way to Elitheris, Almë attacked it twice in quick succession, swinging the arm down and up through the skull spirit. Shreds of flames scattered as the limp hand swiped through the ghostly skull. It passed through Elitheris’ again, and again her insides convulsed with icy chill. The cold had seemed to spread with each successive hit, and she could feel the biting cold in her arms and hips.
Taid realized that his halberd wasn’t the best, quickest weapon he could use to fight a highly maneuverable skull sized object. He shook his head, thinking, Sorry, Maggie. He readied his shortsword, gripping it tightly.
Eykit squinted, calculating his attack and trying to get the timing right. The thing was pretty fast, faster than most people ran. It came close enough to attack, and the quick little Goblin quickly slashed at it twice, and it exploded into a mass of tattered flames that faded away as they spread in the air. He looked around at the rest of his companions. “You’re welcome!” He grinned.
Taid looked around, assessing the situation. He could feel, with every breath, his lungs hurting and crackling like they were filled with ice, and seeing Elitheris and Almë he knew that they were about in the same state as himself. Elitheris coughed, her face contorting in pain as she tried to get her breath back. It seemed to be difficult for her to breathe, now that the battle adrenaline was fading.
He cast a spell of healing on her, and she breathed more easily. He did the same for Almë, then a third time on himself. He was now pretty tired, with the combat and the spell casting both taking their toll on him. He had the feeling that if there had been more of those things, it would have gone pretty badly indeed. They just didn’t seem to be able to hurt them very much. It was a race, nickel and diming each other until eventually, one or the other fell in battle. This time, it was they who were the victors; but there were four of them who were attacking the skull, and only one of it. And it had done some significant damage. One on one, he wasn’t sure who would have been the victor.
“Thanks, Taid,” Elitheris said. Almë nodded his thanks as well. It would still be a few minutes before the shivering subsided.
She and Eykit both started to cut out the Shards embedded in Hoskins’ spine, arms, legs, and chest. Almë glanced over at the desk, strewn with papers and a notebook. He started looking at them, and discovered a pair of letters.
“I found something I should read to you,” Almë said. He read the two letters aloud.
He frowned, flipping back to an earlier section. Not all of the subjects were alive. Some had been dead. Boots, for instance, and Lerial and Patricia, who was the woman attached to Hoskins. They had all started off dead. Reanimated, with the Shards. Hoskins had been alive when the Shards were inserted into the sockets made for them. They had been surgically implanted, supposedly to provide the Hoskins-thing with more power and abilities.
“Yuck,” he said. “Guys, this Vesten fellow…he was a right nutter. But he seemed to be on to something.”
“Oh?” asked Taid. He was going through Vesten’s clothing and accessories, setting them to the side. He had quite the pile. Eykit and Elitheris looked up, interested, but went back to cutting out the Shards as they felt the body try to pull them out of their hands. They got busy with their knives again.
“He found that the Shards worked better when attached to living creatures, rather than dead ones. That Hoskins guy wasn’t a zombie in the sense that we currently understand the term. He never died. Well, until we killed him, anyway.”
“Well, I’m glad we stopped him, then,” Elitheris said. “Good riddance.”
“Agreed,” Eykit said, nodding.
They finished carving out the Shards, collecting the pair, plus 11 others.
“I’m going to check the study,” Almë said. “See if there are any more letters or anything.” He did indeed find some things. Several books on medicine, illnesses, anatomy, and surgical procedures. He also found several books used for necromancy, including something called “The Cult of Ghouls.” He flipped through it, finding it written in an odd runic alphabet that he didn’t recognize. It was illustrated, and filled with disturbing imagery. He found plenty of other, more mundane tomes, including “The Sacred Confessions of Tulku Adanic the Scholar”, the primary book used by the Church of the Awakening. He also found “Fables of Ancient Araterre”, tales from the nation that later became the founder of the Tondene Empire.
He flipped through it, vaguely curious. It was oversized, illustrated with pen and ink drawings, illuminated script, and bound in blue dyed leather with brass bindings.
It didn’t take him long to find a seam in the bricks that made up the walls. It also didn’t take him long to find the opening mechanism, which was just about where he would have put it were it his own secret door. He pushed on the section of mortar that looked like it was about to fall out from between the bricks. The door swung open silently, exposing a narrow, arched tunnel that went about four meters and turned to the left. It was unlit, but the light from the doorway was enough for him to see to navigate down the tunnel. When he got to the first bend, he saw that it turned again, this time to the right, about seven meters. It was dimmer here, but his Dwarven eyes were very used to dark places.
Rounding that corner, he saw that the tunnel stretched into darkness. Just around the corner, however, were two things that caught his eye. The first was a physician’s bag. The second was a large arbalest, with a folding stand to stabilize it. It was currently loaded. It was huge, and Taid figured that the plan was for Herbert, running for his life, to grab the crossbow, and aim it down the tunnel at his pursuers. In the narrow tunnel, there would have been no where to dodge out of the way. The powerfully launched bolt might have gone completely through the first pursuer and into the second.
He looked into the bag. It was full of alchemical potions and pastille vials. He grinned. He had found Vesten’s goodie bag. He found smoke bombs, several potions, a bunch of pastilles, and what appeared to be a jar of liquid flesh. He recognized a few of the elixirs: one of the pastilles looked like the kind that make you go to sleep, three looked like the death pastilles they had, and there were three healing potions. The others he didn’t recognize.
Almë closed the book; it wasn’t time to immerse himself in fairy tales. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized that there was a door that they hadn’t opened. He stepped over to it, and found that it was locked. “Hey, Eykit! Bring your lock picks! There’s a door we haven’t explored yet.”
Eykit came in, and spent about three seconds picking the lock before stepping back, flourishing his hand in an “after you” gesture.
Almë turned the handle, and pushed the door open.
A glittering sea of glass tubes, beakers, and alembics covered two large tables. On one, a thick, greenish liquid bubbled in a glass vat, suspended over an oil burner. On the second, a series of tall cylindrical tubes distilled clear drops of something, depositing the fluid into a sealed container. The room smelled of esoteric chemicals and complicated processes. And not a little like rotting vegetation.
“By Galatha!” he exclaimed. “It’s an alchemy laboratory! I have never seen the like!” He looked around appreciatively. “Now I wish I knew the first thing about the alchemical sciences!”
Eykit could tell that the lab was first-rate. Top of the line. Herbert Vesten had spared no expense, and had sunk quite a bit of money into this facility. His eyes glittered, and his mind counted a whole pile of coins. Now he knew where the Vesten fortune had gone. He’d sacrificed almost the entire estate for this and the monster lab.
Almë looked around, his mind seeing not only the lab, but the entire manor, including the grounds and hidden basement. “You know, we should live here instead of the inn. We could use it as our base. Clean it up, do some repairs, fix the gardens.”
The others had joined him in the study and lab areas by this time. The others looked skeptical. Taid frowned. “What, squat here until the taxman comes?”
“We could write a letter in Vesten’s handwriting ceding the property to us!”
Now it was Eykit’s turn to frown. “That’s ridiculous. Do you know how to forge a document properly?”
“No, but can’t you do it?”
“I’m a thief! Not a forger. Completely different skill set!” And that didn’t even include all of the administrative trouble that would leave everything they did exposed.
Elitheris looked uncomfortable. “Look, guys, I’ve made peace with the fact that we have been working for a thieves’ guild, but I won’t have anything to do with stealing this place. I won’t do anything illegal.”
Taid spoke. “The land may or may not be owned by Vesten. It is likely owned by the Emperor, who gave it in fief to Archduchess Featherstone, who then passed it to Duke Antonian, and then to Count Rhades, then to Baroness Walters, who then gave it in fief to this Vesten loser.” He shrugged. “And Vesten seems to have let the place go to shit, except for his basement hideout.” He looked around, noting the meticulous care and maintenance that had gone into the basement, while everything else had been allowed to fall apart. “Although we did take out a necromancer, and if we took care of the place and generated tax revenues, that could be something in our favor.”
“It’s possible that the Skulls might have some political pull,” Eykit brought up. “Although I really don’t know for sure.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Almë said. “I just think it would be a shame to let this place go to waste.”
“Maybe that alchemist we met in Meke Larnis might want to rent the lab,” Eykit said. “You know, the guy we didn’t rob blind?”
Almë at least had the courtesy to look a little abashed. But it went away quickly.
Taid mentioned that it was true that he would rather save some money on lodging.”
“Oh, and maybe we can make the servants work for us!”
Elitheris and Eykit glanced at each other, both with a look of revulsion on their faces. “No,” the Elven woman said. “I’d rather not. You may trust the food made by a zombie, but I don’t. They might have had a piece of themselves fall off or something.”
“Hey, we don’t know they are dead. This place is a practically a hospital. Maybe they were just surgical patients!”
Taid shook his head. “That’s a stretch. Even if they were just mind-controlled automatons, do you really think that he did so much surgery on them that it required head to toe bandaging?”
As the ramifications of that sunk in, they all blanched. “Ugh,” Eykit said, “that’s a lot of cutting. More than most torturers.”
“Considering this guy wore jewelry to make him smell good,” Elitheris stated, “I think those bandages were used to keep the rotting smell from becoming noticeable. The guy seemed to value his nose.” She sniffed, getting a fresh whiff of the rotting vegetation smell that permeated the alchemy lab. “Except for whatever he’s making in here.” She wrinkled her nose. “Bleh.”
There were nods all around. It was both more likely, and more palatable.
“In any case,” Almë said, bringing the conversation back to its original intent, “if we can manage to get this place legally, I say we go for it.”
The others hemmed and hawed a bit, but they relented. There really was nothing to lose by trying, and maybe, just maybe, they might be able to make a go of it. Someone would pay good rent money to use that glorious lab, and they might even be able to use the other lab as well. Perhaps a group of healers might be able to make it work. There would need to be some modifications made to it, to get rid of the butchery vibe, but that we entirely doable. They didn’t know how large the estate was, but it must have some land around it. They had seen, in the dawn light, several fields that had been fallow for several seasons, at least. It was likely that they belonged to the estate, and Vesten had neglected them as much as the house itself. If they could get those producing, that would be a decent income stream as well. And being fallow for so long meant that they had regenerated their growing potentials, so there was a good chance that their first harvest, at least, would be a good one.
Almë was saying something about getting the gardens in shape, and selling herbs or something. Eykit knew what the street value of several herbs were, and he was starting to like the plan. The goody two shoes archer was even starting to come around, as long as it was legal. He shook his head, smiling a little, and thought, She really needed to loosen up. Legal! Hah! The legal system, such as it is, had never really benefitted me. It benefitted the rich and powerful, not the folks on the street. It’s caused me all kinds of problems, though. By the gods, that was why the street guilds even existed! Without them, people on the street, the poor, the folks under the boot, wouldn’t have any kind of justice at all! It’s not perfect, but it works well enough.
Eventually, he figured, he could bring her around to his way of thinking. He doubted it would be easy, though. He didn’t have enough years in his entire lifetime to change an Elf’s mind. They had hundreds of years to get set in their ways. What was a few decades to that? He, more than anyone else in the little band that he considered to be “his crew”, understood why Elves often called the other races “ephemerals”. Of all of the sentient races on Velyri, the Goblins had the shortest lives. At least, that he knew of. Perhaps the fabled pixies had even shorter lives, like insects. He couldn’t remember the tales well enough. One of these days, he remember to ask Elitheris about them. She seemed to know a lot about the natural world. And she lived in the wilderness since his great-great-great grandfather’s time. Plenty long enough to learn about the pixies, if they existed at all and weren’t just stories.
They decided to leave the basement, likely because either the smell of disinfectants was getting to them, or the overriding smell of decay and blood was. They had left the secret door under the stairs open, and as Taid came around the corner, he could see the butler and the cook standing outside the door. The cook was holding a cleaver in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other. The butler held a metal fire poker.
He started casting the Spell of the Blinding Flash, his fingers forming the somatic glyphs required to channel the mana. He stepped forward, holding his hand up, palm out. He finished the spell, and light erupted from his hand in a blinding flash. He saw three figures: the butler, the cook, and the maid. The maid seemed to be holding a broomstick with the broom broken off, leaving a sharp stick.
If the three bandaged servants had still been alive, they likely would have been blinded by the light that speared their eyes. However, they were indeed zombies, and their eyes no longer functioned in the way they had when they had been alive. They saw in some other magical way, so the flash didn’t affect them in the least.
They attacked, or, rather, the butler and the cook attacked; the maid had the stairway between her and her Dwarven target, and all she could do was shove her stick through the treads, hoping to hit the armored mercenary.
Eykit was able to slip past Taid to enter the fray. Elitheris was stuck in the secret passage, but was able to cast a Spell of Fire Igniting, and a small, candle flame sprung into existence in front of her. She mentally moved it until it was touching the bandages on the cook’s face. She kept it there, as best she could, as the cook moved to and fro in his fight with Taid.
Blows were exchanged, and in a few seconds, the smoldering bandages caught aflame. Eykit finished off the wounded butler, chalking another pair of testicles to his ball-buster chart. The cook, his face on fire, still fought with Taid. The fire didn’t seem to be very disabling, although instead of the usual herbal and lavender smell of the bandaged zombies, an acrid smoke started filling the air. The fire spread down his neck, to his shoulders, and his entire head was a mass of licking flames. It tried to get at Taid, to shove its face into Taid’s, but Taid kept it at bay with his halberd. Eventually, it collapsed, the body no longer able to keep the magical energies that animated it contained. The maid, now with a chance to attack, stepped in with her broken broomstick. It didn’t take long to kill her.
Taid and Eykit decide to go back to town in order to get Wilbur and talk to Jakkit about possibly getting some help and get the estate. Elitheris and Almë stayed behind, Elitheris to figure out sleeping quarters, and Almë went outside to survey the garden beds and plan how to make them functional.
As he was pulling the occasional weed out of the choked beds, he felt a weight land on his back, followed by a series of needle sharp points sticking into his shoulders. He screamed like a little girl, high pitched and full of terror.
It was the cat-thing, raking its hind claws down his back while it attempted to bite his neck. Spinning wildly, Almë tried to grab it, failing a couple of times until he finally was able to get a grip on the squirming thing. He pulled as hard as he could, feeling the claws tear through his flesh as he did so, tossing the writhing thing.
It hit the weedy paver stones, rolled, and bounded into the undergrowth that grew rampant throughout the yard. Almë couldn’t see it, but he knew it was out there. He could feel the blood seeping into his clothing and gambeson.
Not wanting to be within the walls of the courtyard, he walked briskly out the gate and into the fallow fields that stretched to the north of the house. The weeds there were over waist high, but he hoped that the cat-thing would stay near the house.
In any case, it didn’t seem to be nearby. The weeds were very robust, and he knelt down and dug into the soil with his fingers. He raised a handful of earth up, sniffed it, tasted it. His eyes lighted up.
“It’s Essential!” he said aloud. “This is wonderful!” He ran across the field, about 20 paces, and checked the earth again. It too, was Essential earth. He ran several more paces, checking the dirt. All across the northern fields, all of the earth was Essential.
Oh, he thought, if we manage to get these fields up and running, our harvests will be good indeed!
Eykit pushed it open, revealing a short, brick-lined corridor that turned to the right after about two meters.
Around the corner, a short hallway opened onto a bookshelf lined study, with a pair of wingback chairs with ottomans, and a large desk with a chair behind it. Papers were strewn on the desk, pages of notes and scribblings, along with a few books. Eykit, Elitheris, and Almë entered into the study, looking around with curiosity. Taid stayed at the corner of the hallway, poised to watch in either direction. He suspected that the servants, or something worse, might come and attack them from the rear.
Elitheris listened at the other door, but heard nothing. When she tried the door, it was locked. When Eykit tried the door he was at, it was also locked. A locked door, to Eykit, was an invitation, not an obstacle. He picked it quietly and easily. After his last couple of attempts, he was very thankful that his lock picking skills hadn’t failed him. If he had fumbled at this door too, he would have been shamed in front of his companions.
He glanced back at the others, miming opening the door. They nodded, and he cracked it open. As it opened into the study, he was able to peek out into the adjacent room.
He saw what looked like a medical facility mixed with a meat packing plant. Two articulated surgical tables, complete with movable arm and leg supports, sat in the middle of the room, and a track on the ceiling ran between them. Several meat hooks hung from the track, along with some chains with straps.
He saw the rest of the room. The other half of the room looked like a morgue, with two rows of three morgue drawers along the far back wall. In front of those were three metal autopsy tables, with drains.
Shards were, as most people knew, indestructible. That’s why there had been several attempts to use them as weapons, such as spearpoints, or arrowheads. The attempt to use them as arrowheads failed miserably, however, as no one wanted to loose them; that would mean giving up a Shard, and that was just too difficult. It took great strength of will to willingly give up Shards. They had that effect on people. So much so that it still made people wonder why the strong simply didn’t take them. They seemingly both amplified a focused greed for them while simultaneously damping violent reactions.
Elitheris moved around Almë, having to go around one of the surgical tables in order to get a clear shot at the…whatever it was. Zombie? Conjoined twins? But as she did so, the mage came into view. He stood there, chanting softly, a skull held under one arm. Her target instantly became Herbert; perhaps if she killed him, the monster would drop dead. Oftentimes, magic worked like that, and there was no way that thing was able to live without magic! Her arrow leapt from her bow, but the casting mage had been expecting it and dodged to the side, and the missile thwunked into the back of a standing cabinet, punching a splintered hole in it.
Taid ran into the room, but his halberd got hung up on the doorframe, throwing him off balance and fouling his attack. Cursing in guttural Northern Khuzdûl, he unhooked the axe blade from the doorframe and got his halberd properly into the room. The axe had left a mark on the doorway’s trim, and a part of his mind told him it served Vesten right.
Almë attacked again, but it was parried by the mace held in the woman’s hand. His second attack connected, this time on the elbow. It seemed to do some damage, but the thing didn’t drop Eykit. Instead, it lifted Eykit over its head, turning to try to hang Eykit on one of the hooks.
Eykit, meanwhile, didn’t really want to end up impaled on a hook. He kicked out again, squirming, hitting the Hoskins-thing in the chest again. But the leverage was still bad, so it was mostly ineffectual. But he wasn’t going out without a fight! Even if it was ineffectual, he was going to try.
Taid yelled “Duck!” to Almë, and swung his halberd at the creature’s arm. He severed it, the arm and hand staying attached to Eykit’s upper arm, ineffectually squeezing his shoulder with its fingers. But this altered the thing’s plans, as the now uneven weight of Eykit pulled downward and to the side, the one arm unable to keep Eykit’s weight over its head. It at least delayed Eykit’s impalement.
Elitheris skirted the battle, wanting to go for Herbert. She loosed another arrow, this time at Herbert’s face.
Herbert, however, was prepared, and didn’t want any more facial wounds, and was able to dodge the arrow by leaping out of the way. But now things were getting out of hand. He tossed the skull into the air, and it exploded into blue flame, the skull wreathed in a fiery halo. It hung there for a moment, as if the blue flaming skull was looking for a target, then hurtled through the air towards the group.
Eykit had a hand free, now that he was only being held by one arm, and he pawed at the hanging hook, grasping it in his fingers. Holding onto it would drastically reduce the chances of being impaled upon it.
Elitheris drew another arrow, nocking it on her bowstring.
Taid scurried past the abomination, going around it on its left, with the same idea that Elitheris had: if the necromancer died, maybe his magics would die with him. He sincerely felt that Maggie needed to drink necromancer blood.
The flaming skull spirit arced towards Taid, but he leapt and spun, twisting out of the way of the skull as it hurtled past him, passing silently through the wall behind him and into the study.
The mace held by the woman rose and fell, slamming into the back of Mr. Wiggles’s neck. The poor pup was knocked down, his toothy grip on the creature’s leg coming loose. Fortunately, he had armor, so the iron flanged mace didn’t turn him into paste, although he did yelp in pain and surprise.
Mr. Wiggles’s canine brain assessed the threat, and jumped up, grabbing onto the woman’s wrist just above the haft of the mace. He weighed about 20 kilos, and made the woman struggle to use the mace.
Elitheris loosed another arrow, aiming again for Herbert’s face, but she missed as he ducked, the arrow glancing off of the top one of the autopsy tables.
Eykit got his other arm on the hook, and tried to pull free of the thing’s grasp. He wasn’t successful; the thing’s strength was too great.
Almë struck at it again, his staff whirring through the air, but it was deflected.
Then Almë slammed his staff into the backs of its knees sweeping Hoskins’s legs out from under him, and that part of the creature fell to its knees, dragging the woman along clumsily. The woman, pulled down by Hoskins’s collapse to its knees, managed to stay more or less upright, or at least as about as upright as it had been.
It’s grip lessened, Eykit took the opportunity to wriggle free. He hung from the meat hook, swinging back and forth. He pried the hand and forearm off of his shoulder with a shudder. He’d expected it to fall off of its own accord once it had been severed, but the grasping hand had still tried to squeeze his shoulder. He’d likely have a spread of fingerprint bruises on both shoulders.
Taid was in range of Herbert, and he lunged, but Herbert stepped back in response, watching as Taid’s halberd point came within inches of piercing him in the heart. It was good timing, the deep lunge dropped Taid’s head low enough that the skull spirit, emerging through the wall behind him, flew harmlessly over him. It was lucky. Taid hadn’t even known it was coming.
The flaming skull was eerily silent. It made no sound, not even the roaring of flames. It circled for another attack. The necromancer realized that his initial spell he wanted to cast would take too long, so he changed to a quicker one.
“Enough of this crap,” Elitheris muttered softly, as she pulled Maica Melehtë (Piercing Might) out of its sheath at her side. She ran towards the mage, frustrated that he was able to avoid her arrows.
The Hoskins-thing, it’s prey no longer in its grasp, struck out with its fist, slamming it into Almë’s arm. Fortunately for Almë, he was wearing padded armor, and the knobby fist only caused what would later become a large bruise.
The skull was still flying around, trying to hit Taid, but the wily Dwarf evaded its touch yet again. How long he could keep it up, he didn’t know. But it was fast, faster than most people could sprint. They may be able to dodge out of its way, but they wouldn’t be able to outrun it. And it had the advantage of being able to move through objects without slowing down.
Almë struck twice in quick succession, a quick alternating pair of hits with first one end of the staff, then the other. Both strikes slammed the metal-shod wood into the creature’s chest. Almë thought he heard some ribs crack, but the room was filled with all kinds of noises, so he wasn’t sure.
Herbert was, if nothing else, a very level-headed person. He hadn’t gone through what he did socially and financially to lose his cool now, and so he was able to keep casting even as a frenzied Dwarf ran into him. The Spell of Sleeping went off, but to his surprise, the Dwarf seemed to barely feel it.
Taid grinned at him, his teeth glinting from within his beard, as he stood nose to nose with the necromancer. “Fuck you very much,” the Dwarf said, a smug grin on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blue flames coming at him again. He spun the mage again, interposing him between the skull and himself. “Eat your own skull!”
The skull hit him, and the mage screamed. The skull passed through his chest, and he could feel its chilling touch in the muscles, bones, and organs. He felt his muscles clench painfully, as the icy touch worked its way through his body from front to back.
The skull spirit went through both Herbert and Taid. Taid felt it go through him, as well. The same chilling touch that worked its way through his upper chest and neck, his heart skipping a beat as the blue flames pulled heat from his body. He shivered in its wake. It had gone right through Herbert, and through his armor. Like a ghost.
It fell to one knee. Mr. Wiggles, still clamped onto the woman’s wrist, bit hard. The creature fell, the Hoskins portion flat onto its face, the woman portion following along, turning onto her side. Both were mostly motionless, at least in overall movement. The tissues continued to writhe. “That’s disgusting.” he stated.
Almë, not completely sure it was dead, decided to make sure with a strong overhand strike to its skull. It cracked, although unlike Lerial’s, didn’t splatter like an overripe melon.
Taid head butted Herbert, his legionary helmet’s nasal guard making an imprint on the mage’s forehead. Herbert’s head snapped back, and he let out a guttural cry of pain.
The blue flaming skull, having emerged from Herbert and Taid, came flying at Elitheris. She dove forward, under the blue flaming flying thing, tucking into a roll, and came back up onto her feet, the skull meters behind her. And now she was right there with Taid and Herbert. Her arm snapped out, the dagger flashed, and it went into Herbert’s chest just under the armpit. The sharp, enchanted blade slid through his clothing as if it weren’t there, between a pair of ribs, through first one lung then the other, grazing the heart along the way. There was a short grunt or exhalation, and Herbert’s body went limp in Taid’s arms. He was dead before Elitheris pulled the knife from between his ribs.
Eykit, meanwhile, had no intention of letting the Hoskins-thing live again, if that were possible. And all of the indications showed that the still-squirming flesh tendrils were trying to reanimate the body. He started cutting out the controlling Shard from the woman’s back. It was then that he noticed that her Shard was connected to a Shard on Hoskins’ leg, forming a Shard pair. He got busy with his knife digging them out, every once in a while looking up to check where that flaming skull was. It wouldn’t do to be surprised by that silently swooping skull. And his Goblin hearing, good as it was, wouldn’t help him with that.
Almë ran towards where the severed arm lay between the two surgical tables. He planned to use it to batter the flying skull. He could see tendrils or roots of bloody flesh trying to crawl towards the main bulk of the Hoskins-thing. Likely to try and reattach itself. He’d heard that troll flesh did that, but he hadn’t seen it himself. Trolls lived in more mountainous areas than where he grew up.
Taid let the dead body of the necromancer drop; it didn’t make a useful shield against that the skull anyway. He pulled his shortsword out of its scabbard. He kept his eye on the floating skull as it turned around for another pass.
Elitheris saw it arc around then plunge through her chest. Its icy touch made her curl into herself as it passed through her flesh, chilling it, making her feel like her heart had turned to ice. The cold clutched at her, and she had trouble breathing. But that didn’t stop her; she had already begun the motion. She spun, the knife out and thrusting through the blue flames. It had the consistency of mist, and she could see tatters of flames following her blade as it passed through the ghost-like skull.
Almë stooped as he ran, scooping up the arm by the severed end, the hand flopping limply. He felt something—lots of somethings, actually—touching his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, for he didn’t want to take his eyes off of the flaming skull, he could see the muscle fibers that had been reaching toward the main body now wrapping themselves around his fingers. It was unnerving. It was like putting his hand in a bucket of live, sticky worms.
It came around again, and Taid slashed at it with his sword. Like Elitheris, tatters of flames showed where the sword cut through the insubstantial skull. But there seemed to be more of the “tatters” when he cut through it than when Elitheris tried to put a hole in it.
As if reacting to the attack by the Dwarf, the skull spirit changed course again and dove through him. He grunted in pain, the feeling of an icy hand gripping his heart. It was a cold that lingered, and seemed to pull his body heat into a small, cold ball.
Eykit still worked on carving the Shard cluster out of the woman’s back and Hoskins’ leg. It was foul work, the tough fleshy tendrils didn’t want to be cut, and it seemed to Eykit that they kept reinforcing themselves every time he made progress. But he kept sawing at them.
The skull spun about and flew at Elitheris; she swiped at it as it came at her. Shreds of flames appeared to be pulled from the skull as the blade swept downward, just as it passed through the Elven woman again. She gritted her teeth as she forcefully bit back a scream of pain.
As it emerged from Elitheris’ back, Almë swung the severed arm like a floppy club, but the skull was too fast for him, and he missed with his clumsy, makeshift weapon.
“Maybe a larger weapon will hurt it more!” Taid shouted, as he dove and rolled for his halberd, which had been lying on the floor where he had dropped it.
Elitheris slashed at the flaming skull as it flew past, ripping flames from it. She couldn’t tell, since it was covered in flames and moving too fast, but small cracks were appearing on the skull, as if the repeated slices were damaging it, despite the weapons passing right through it.
It was headed towards Almë, and he managed to swing the arm through it as it came at him. The hand passed through it, appearing to claw flames from its body, just before the skull spirit dove through the gardener’s chest. Almë tried to dodge to the side, but was unsuccessful, but the skull didn’t pass through his heart, just a lung. He coughed in pain as the cold clutched at his tissues.
Finally, Eykit freed the Shard cluster from the knot of twisted flesh, and the woman fell away from Hoskins. Her flesh was still. Hoskins’ flesh was still squirming about, still trying to reorganize into something more optimized.
Again Elitheris slashed at the flaming skull at it came at her. It tried to move out of the way of her knife, but she was faster and altered her strike so that it slashed right through its left eye socket. It seemed to dip momentarily, but that was likely just wishful thinking on her part.
As the skull flew past on its way to Elitheris, Almë attacked it twice in quick succession, swinging the arm down and up through the skull spirit. Shreds of flames scattered as the limp hand swiped through the ghostly skull. It passed through Elitheris’ again, and again her insides convulsed with icy chill. The cold had seemed to spread with each successive hit, and she could feel the biting cold in her arms and hips.
Taid realized that his halberd wasn’t the best, quickest weapon he could use to fight a highly maneuverable skull sized object. He shook his head, thinking, Sorry, Maggie. He readied his shortsword, gripping it tightly.
Eykit squinted, calculating his attack and trying to get the timing right. The thing was pretty fast, faster than most people ran. It came close enough to attack, and the quick little Goblin quickly slashed at it twice, and it exploded into a mass of tattered flames that faded away as they spread in the air. He looked around at the rest of his companions. “You’re welcome!” He grinned.
Taid looked around, assessing the situation. He could feel, with every breath, his lungs hurting and crackling like they were filled with ice, and seeing Elitheris and Almë he knew that they were about in the same state as himself. Elitheris coughed, her face contorting in pain as she tried to get her breath back. It seemed to be difficult for her to breathe, now that the battle adrenaline was fading.
He cast a spell of healing on her, and she breathed more easily. He did the same for Almë, then a third time on himself. He was now pretty tired, with the combat and the spell casting both taking their toll on him. He had the feeling that if there had been more of those things, it would have gone pretty badly indeed. They just didn’t seem to be able to hurt them very much. It was a race, nickel and diming each other until eventually, one or the other fell in battle. This time, it was they who were the victors; but there were four of them who were attacking the skull, and only one of it. And it had done some significant damage. One on one, he wasn’t sure who would have been the victor.
“Thanks, Taid,” Elitheris said. Almë nodded his thanks as well. It would still be a few minutes before the shivering subsided.
She and Eykit both started to cut out the Shards embedded in Hoskins’ spine, arms, legs, and chest. Almë glanced over at the desk, strewn with papers and a notebook. He started looking at them, and discovered a pair of letters.
“I found something I should read to you,” Almë said. He read the two letters aloud.
Heatdaze 35, 879 AFEAnd
Greetings, Nigel,
I hope this letter finds you well. Your last missive mentioned that your mother was ill. I hope that she has recovered well. If she succumbed to the Final Darkness, you have my condolences. I am also interested in how far your studies have come along. You are young, but I feel that you have so much to contribute to the field.
The experiments I detailed in the last letter have been going well. The Shards have such potential! I’ve never seen anything like it. The subject of our shared interest shall never be the same again.
As I said in my last letter, I started with my cat. Now I can give you some more information. While I was dismayed that it had been killed by a hawk (and even more dismayed that I wan’t able to kill it before it flew off) the opportunity was too great to ignore. I had noticed some odd effects that the Shards had. The one that interested me the most was its effect on animals.
Do you remember those old wives’ tales of animals carrying Shards in their mouths and piling them up? Well, if you tally up enough of those tales, you eventually realize that the piles of Shards were not exclusive to each animal. They were shared piles. Wolves, raccoons, rabbits, birds…the piles were geographic, not territorial. Those piles weren’t species exclusive. All of the animals seemed to have the same drive. Similar to the stories about how common Shards used to be on beaches.
Of course, with the popularity of Shards nowadays, these piles no longer happen, as they are found by people. Who of course rejoice in their luck and good fortune.
But that’s not the point. Sorry, I digress. A bad habit of mine.
What is important is that Shards have an effect on animals. So I decided to see what kind of an effect it would have, if any, on my dead cat. Well, let me tell you, with a bit of experimentation, I was able to connect the Shard to Boots. And you know what? It worked. I didn’t have to use any of the spells in the Grimoire. Boots reanimated! And he wasn’t the shambling, stumbling thing that you would expect. No! He was vigorous, and moved faster than he ever had before!
But that’s not the really interesting part, my friend. Usually, subjects of this general type tend to fall apart over time. Accelerated wear and a base fragility that seems to come with the territory, so to speak. And, at first, I thought that was happening. But, that isn’t the case. It happened with my later subjects as well. The important part is this: the material rearranges itself. It optimizes. It becomes something greater. Faster. Stronger. It shuffles its musculature around to use it more efficiently. Some material it just ignores, like the organs. Those aren’t needed any more, and it lets them just fall off. Boots, while still cat-like, no longer looks like a cat. It’s leaner, more like a greyhound. Bigger teeth and claws, though.
The process isn’t immediate; my first human subject has begun the process, but is hasn’t progressed very far. My second is too new; I just finished her. I am looking forward to tracking the physiological changes in them as well. If they follow my cat’s example, the process will peak in a week or so, then tail off as it finishes. The whole process, if my small cat is any indication, takes something like a month or so.
More later, when I have more findings.
Yours truly,
HV
Heatdaze 32, 879 AFEAlmë flipped through the notebook. It appeared to hold all of Herbert Vesten’s research notes on the Shards and how they interact with living beings. It read like a new ager’s attempt at necromancy, full of notes about crystal power, aetheric energies, and enlightenment. His log entries made it abundantly clear that he was excited about his discoveries, and truly felt that he was exploring new, untraveled ground. He wasn’t really doing necromancy, at least, not with what he was calling “The Sharded Dead”. He used living subjects. What they became later…wasn’t truly a zombie.
Greetings, Kallia,
Thank you for your last letter. I’m heartened by your support of my work. I know it’s unconventional, and not a little weird (and chilling, if I’m being honest), but it’s revolutionary. And I’m glad you were able to see that. I can’t stress enough how much that means to me. And congratulations on finding success with your own initial forays into this most exciting field of study!
But, on to the important parts! I began my second human study. The Shards seem to work best when inserted into the spinal column. I suppose it’s for control purposes, if the Elven medical texts are to be believed. I’ve always wondered how they came to that conclusion, actually. I’ve never quite understood how those pale fibers buried in our flesh acted like puppet strings. But they have been right in just about all other things medical, so I don’t doubt they are right about this, too. Besides, it works! Both Lerial and Patricia “recovered” nicely and are fully functional.
Oh! Something else….When I created Patricia, when she first recovered from the procedure, I had been using Lerial as a fetch and carry servant. He’s not much good for anything else, or so I thought at the time. But as soon as Patricia got up off the table, she and Lerial did this weird bumping dance together. It was very strange. They stopped after a minute or so. I’m still trying to figure out that behavior. They have been together on other occasions, and haven’t repeated that behavior, so part of me is wondering if I dreamed the whole thing. And they haven’t tried dancing with me, so I am thinking it’s limited to their unusual physiognomy? I’m still puzzling that out. But that’s what experimentation is for, right? For figuring out the important questions!
I’ll do what I can to keep you informed. I excitedly await your next reply, hopefully detailing the results of your own further experiments on the subject.
Yours truly,
HV
He frowned, flipping back to an earlier section. Not all of the subjects were alive. Some had been dead. Boots, for instance, and Lerial and Patricia, who was the woman attached to Hoskins. They had all started off dead. Reanimated, with the Shards. Hoskins had been alive when the Shards were inserted into the sockets made for them. They had been surgically implanted, supposedly to provide the Hoskins-thing with more power and abilities.
“Yuck,” he said. “Guys, this Vesten fellow…he was a right nutter. But he seemed to be on to something.”
“Oh?” asked Taid. He was going through Vesten’s clothing and accessories, setting them to the side. He had quite the pile. Eykit and Elitheris looked up, interested, but went back to cutting out the Shards as they felt the body try to pull them out of their hands. They got busy with their knives again.
“He found that the Shards worked better when attached to living creatures, rather than dead ones. That Hoskins guy wasn’t a zombie in the sense that we currently understand the term. He never died. Well, until we killed him, anyway.”
“Well, I’m glad we stopped him, then,” Elitheris said. “Good riddance.”
“Agreed,” Eykit said, nodding.
They finished carving out the Shards, collecting the pair, plus 11 others.
“I’m going to check the study,” Almë said. “See if there are any more letters or anything.” He did indeed find some things. Several books on medicine, illnesses, anatomy, and surgical procedures. He also found several books used for necromancy, including something called “The Cult of Ghouls.” He flipped through it, finding it written in an odd runic alphabet that he didn’t recognize. It was illustrated, and filled with disturbing imagery. He found plenty of other, more mundane tomes, including “The Sacred Confessions of Tulku Adanic the Scholar”, the primary book used by the Church of the Awakening. He also found “Fables of Ancient Araterre”, tales from the nation that later became the founder of the Tondene Empire.
He flipped through it, vaguely curious. It was oversized, illustrated with pen and ink drawings, illuminated script, and bound in blue dyed leather with brass bindings.
A tale tells of an evil wolf that, in order to get past the guard dogs to a flock of sheep, donned a sheepskin and snuck into the flock, masquerading as a sheep. He fed well, but found out that he couldn’t take the sheepskin off, and was shunned by all of the other wolves for violating their Hunter’s Code. As time went on, he became more and more sheeplike, until he eventually became one.While Almë was off in the study, looking at books, and Eykit and Elitheris were going through the things that Vesten had carried, Taid was curious. Herbert Vesten had been standing between his desk, and a standing cabinet. An odd place to make one’s last stand, he thought. Trapped as he was between the furniture. Why? Tactically, it was stupid. He started looking around the area.
Another tells of a warrior by the name of Barynor Who-Walks-Lightly who was looking for a wife, and was in love with this girl from the next village, but she had an empty heart, and nothing he did or said could change it. So the Gods granted him a boon, for he was brave, honest, kind and respectful. So one morning he found a pair of long feathers by his bed, and when he picked them up, he turned into a great bird. So he flew up to the great City in the Clouds, where the Gods lived, and was introduced to Sun, who was looking for a husband.
Her beauty was radiant, and her eyes shone with mirth, and her smile gleamed. She wore rainbows, sky, and clouds for clothes, and Barynor fell deeply in love, and they were married by the gods. But all was not paradise, for he was but a mortal, and had to go back to his village. So, for the next ten years, all he could do was look upon his bride, and that is all she could do for him, although he could feel her love whenever he went outside. Sun asked her fellow deities if they could be together again, and they, after much deliberation, said yes, but Barynor must leave his village forever and become one of their number. She agreed for him, knowing that he would agree.
The next morning, the other villagers found him dead, but with a smile on his face, the sun shining onto him from the open window.
Another tale tells of two villages that have a feud. In it, they fight for over a century, with neither coming out the victor, each losing its best warriors. Then there is a severe drought, and both villages start to starve until it is discovered that one village had a new-found spring, but its land was rocky and mountainous, unfit for growing any major amount of crops. The other village had a lot of good, flat land, ideal for growing crops. In order to save everyone, the two villages had to forget their feud (whose cause was forgotten anyway) and work together.
One tale tells of a plague of monsters, and how the Manarch Heyrono Trellisyn saved everyone by making the monsters go away. Heyrono was not very well liked because of the evil magic that he used, but, after saving everyone, he gained acceptance. It is a sort of “Pied Piper” story, mixed with a “don’t hate people because they are different” message.
How the parrot got the ability to speak
Once upon a time, the colorful parrots were silent. They had no voices, unlike all of the other birds in the jungle. They could hear the beautiful cries of the other birds singing to one another, and felt very sad that they could not join in. Their gift had been their colorful feathers, which was more beautiful than any of the other birds, who were drab in comparison. Their raiment was glorious, and while other birds were envious, the parrots didn’t think it was enough.
One parrot devised a plan to steal the songs of the other birds, so that the parrots could sound like any bird they wanted. She took stalks from the tendril fungus to catch the birdsong, seeds from the bloodtree to drain the birdsong out of them, and leaves from the trapping plant to imprison the birdsong, and wove them into a spell. She then cast this spell on the whole jungle, and the enchantment spread like a wave on a pond. But there were more than just birds in the jungle, so the spell was cast on all of the animals in the jungle. All of the animals that felt this wave shuddered as they felt their souls shaken, and a small part of it removed.
And parrots gained their voices. But not having been born with them, they didn’t know how to use those voices, and so they had to learn, and this took time. More time than many parrots had, so not all of them were able to speak like the other birds. But some could learn, and they were able to sound like other birds, or antelope, or cats, or lizards. Some could even sound like the two legged animals that used sticks and stones.
Because they could sound like other animals, parrots were coveted by the Two-legs. They put them in cages, and made them say the things they wanted them to say. Some think that this was punishment by the gods for stealing the voices.
And that is why parrots can speak.
Yet another tells of an evil ogre who lived in a large river, near the ford. He was called Lorgo the Mighty, and stood as tall as three men. His arms were the size of large trees, his hands like gnarled roots, his voice was like thunder, and his eyes glowed like coals. He would demand tribute, and eat those who couldn’t pay. Many heroes try to vanquish the foul creature, but they all lose and are eaten, until one called Koren-on-the-Marshes comes along. He was courageous and clever, but not a good fighter. He spoke to his mother, who was a seer of great power, and asked for her help. She told him that the ogre was invincible, for the ogre was as mighty as the river itself, and she could not help him.
Koren thought for a while, then went off to do battle. But what he really did was dam the river, so that only a little water flowed downstream. Within the hour, the ogre stomped upstream to the dam, to see who had done this to his river. Koren noticed that, despite travelers’ claims about the large size of Lorgo, the ogre was now only a foot high. “Return to me my river!” Lorgo demanded in a high squeaky voice. “And if I don’t?” Koren replied. “Then I shall eat you like all the rest!” Lorgo stormed, gnashing his uneven teeth. So Koren grabbed him by the legs and swung him into a nearby tree, splitting his head. Lorgo was no more, and Koren-on-the-Marshes was hailed as a hero.
It didn’t take him long to find a seam in the bricks that made up the walls. It also didn’t take him long to find the opening mechanism, which was just about where he would have put it were it his own secret door. He pushed on the section of mortar that looked like it was about to fall out from between the bricks. The door swung open silently, exposing a narrow, arched tunnel that went about four meters and turned to the left. It was unlit, but the light from the doorway was enough for him to see to navigate down the tunnel. When he got to the first bend, he saw that it turned again, this time to the right, about seven meters. It was dimmer here, but his Dwarven eyes were very used to dark places.
He looked into the bag. It was full of alchemical potions and pastille vials. He grinned. He had found Vesten’s goodie bag. He found smoke bombs, several potions, a bunch of pastilles, and what appeared to be a jar of liquid flesh. He recognized a few of the elixirs: one of the pastilles looked like the kind that make you go to sleep, three looked like the death pastilles they had, and there were three healing potions. The others he didn’t recognize.
Almë closed the book; it wasn’t time to immerse himself in fairy tales. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized that there was a door that they hadn’t opened. He stepped over to it, and found that it was locked. “Hey, Eykit! Bring your lock picks! There’s a door we haven’t explored yet.”
Eykit came in, and spent about three seconds picking the lock before stepping back, flourishing his hand in an “after you” gesture.
Almë turned the handle, and pushed the door open.
A glittering sea of glass tubes, beakers, and alembics covered two large tables. On one, a thick, greenish liquid bubbled in a glass vat, suspended over an oil burner. On the second, a series of tall cylindrical tubes distilled clear drops of something, depositing the fluid into a sealed container. The room smelled of esoteric chemicals and complicated processes. And not a little like rotting vegetation.
“By Galatha!” he exclaimed. “It’s an alchemy laboratory! I have never seen the like!” He looked around appreciatively. “Now I wish I knew the first thing about the alchemical sciences!”
Eykit could tell that the lab was first-rate. Top of the line. Herbert Vesten had spared no expense, and had sunk quite a bit of money into this facility. His eyes glittered, and his mind counted a whole pile of coins. Now he knew where the Vesten fortune had gone. He’d sacrificed almost the entire estate for this and the monster lab.
Almë looked around, his mind seeing not only the lab, but the entire manor, including the grounds and hidden basement. “You know, we should live here instead of the inn. We could use it as our base. Clean it up, do some repairs, fix the gardens.”
The others had joined him in the study and lab areas by this time. The others looked skeptical. Taid frowned. “What, squat here until the taxman comes?”
“We could write a letter in Vesten’s handwriting ceding the property to us!”
Now it was Eykit’s turn to frown. “That’s ridiculous. Do you know how to forge a document properly?”
“No, but can’t you do it?”
“I’m a thief! Not a forger. Completely different skill set!” And that didn’t even include all of the administrative trouble that would leave everything they did exposed.
Elitheris looked uncomfortable. “Look, guys, I’ve made peace with the fact that we have been working for a thieves’ guild, but I won’t have anything to do with stealing this place. I won’t do anything illegal.”
Taid spoke. “The land may or may not be owned by Vesten. It is likely owned by the Emperor, who gave it in fief to Archduchess Featherstone, who then passed it to Duke Antonian, and then to Count Rhades, then to Baroness Walters, who then gave it in fief to this Vesten loser.” He shrugged. “And Vesten seems to have let the place go to shit, except for his basement hideout.” He looked around, noting the meticulous care and maintenance that had gone into the basement, while everything else had been allowed to fall apart. “Although we did take out a necromancer, and if we took care of the place and generated tax revenues, that could be something in our favor.”
“It’s possible that the Skulls might have some political pull,” Eykit brought up. “Although I really don’t know for sure.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Almë said. “I just think it would be a shame to let this place go to waste.”
“Maybe that alchemist we met in Meke Larnis might want to rent the lab,” Eykit said. “You know, the guy we didn’t rob blind?”
Almë at least had the courtesy to look a little abashed. But it went away quickly.
Taid mentioned that it was true that he would rather save some money on lodging.”
“Oh, and maybe we can make the servants work for us!”
Elitheris and Eykit glanced at each other, both with a look of revulsion on their faces. “No,” the Elven woman said. “I’d rather not. You may trust the food made by a zombie, but I don’t. They might have had a piece of themselves fall off or something.”
“Hey, we don’t know they are dead. This place is a practically a hospital. Maybe they were just surgical patients!”
Taid shook his head. “That’s a stretch. Even if they were just mind-controlled automatons, do you really think that he did so much surgery on them that it required head to toe bandaging?”
As the ramifications of that sunk in, they all blanched. “Ugh,” Eykit said, “that’s a lot of cutting. More than most torturers.”
“Considering this guy wore jewelry to make him smell good,” Elitheris stated, “I think those bandages were used to keep the rotting smell from becoming noticeable. The guy seemed to value his nose.” She sniffed, getting a fresh whiff of the rotting vegetation smell that permeated the alchemy lab. “Except for whatever he’s making in here.” She wrinkled her nose. “Bleh.”
There were nods all around. It was both more likely, and more palatable.
“In any case,” Almë said, bringing the conversation back to its original intent, “if we can manage to get this place legally, I say we go for it.”
The others hemmed and hawed a bit, but they relented. There really was nothing to lose by trying, and maybe, just maybe, they might be able to make a go of it. Someone would pay good rent money to use that glorious lab, and they might even be able to use the other lab as well. Perhaps a group of healers might be able to make it work. There would need to be some modifications made to it, to get rid of the butchery vibe, but that we entirely doable. They didn’t know how large the estate was, but it must have some land around it. They had seen, in the dawn light, several fields that had been fallow for several seasons, at least. It was likely that they belonged to the estate, and Vesten had neglected them as much as the house itself. If they could get those producing, that would be a decent income stream as well. And being fallow for so long meant that they had regenerated their growing potentials, so there was a good chance that their first harvest, at least, would be a good one.
Almë was saying something about getting the gardens in shape, and selling herbs or something. Eykit knew what the street value of several herbs were, and he was starting to like the plan. The goody two shoes archer was even starting to come around, as long as it was legal. He shook his head, smiling a little, and thought, She really needed to loosen up. Legal! Hah! The legal system, such as it is, had never really benefitted me. It benefitted the rich and powerful, not the folks on the street. It’s caused me all kinds of problems, though. By the gods, that was why the street guilds even existed! Without them, people on the street, the poor, the folks under the boot, wouldn’t have any kind of justice at all! It’s not perfect, but it works well enough.
Eventually, he figured, he could bring her around to his way of thinking. He doubted it would be easy, though. He didn’t have enough years in his entire lifetime to change an Elf’s mind. They had hundreds of years to get set in their ways. What was a few decades to that? He, more than anyone else in the little band that he considered to be “his crew”, understood why Elves often called the other races “ephemerals”. Of all of the sentient races on Velyri, the Goblins had the shortest lives. At least, that he knew of. Perhaps the fabled pixies had even shorter lives, like insects. He couldn’t remember the tales well enough. One of these days, he remember to ask Elitheris about them. She seemed to know a lot about the natural world. And she lived in the wilderness since his great-great-great grandfather’s time. Plenty long enough to learn about the pixies, if they existed at all and weren’t just stories.
They decided to leave the basement, likely because either the smell of disinfectants was getting to them, or the overriding smell of decay and blood was. They had left the secret door under the stairs open, and as Taid came around the corner, he could see the butler and the cook standing outside the door. The cook was holding a cleaver in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other. The butler held a metal fire poker.
He started casting the Spell of the Blinding Flash, his fingers forming the somatic glyphs required to channel the mana. He stepped forward, holding his hand up, palm out. He finished the spell, and light erupted from his hand in a blinding flash. He saw three figures: the butler, the cook, and the maid. The maid seemed to be holding a broomstick with the broom broken off, leaving a sharp stick.
If the three bandaged servants had still been alive, they likely would have been blinded by the light that speared their eyes. However, they were indeed zombies, and their eyes no longer functioned in the way they had when they had been alive. They saw in some other magical way, so the flash didn’t affect them in the least.
They attacked, or, rather, the butler and the cook attacked; the maid had the stairway between her and her Dwarven target, and all she could do was shove her stick through the treads, hoping to hit the armored mercenary.
Eykit was able to slip past Taid to enter the fray. Elitheris was stuck in the secret passage, but was able to cast a Spell of Fire Igniting, and a small, candle flame sprung into existence in front of her. She mentally moved it until it was touching the bandages on the cook’s face. She kept it there, as best she could, as the cook moved to and fro in his fight with Taid.
Blows were exchanged, and in a few seconds, the smoldering bandages caught aflame. Eykit finished off the wounded butler, chalking another pair of testicles to his ball-buster chart. The cook, his face on fire, still fought with Taid. The fire didn’t seem to be very disabling, although instead of the usual herbal and lavender smell of the bandaged zombies, an acrid smoke started filling the air. The fire spread down his neck, to his shoulders, and his entire head was a mass of licking flames. It tried to get at Taid, to shove its face into Taid’s, but Taid kept it at bay with his halberd. Eventually, it collapsed, the body no longer able to keep the magical energies that animated it contained. The maid, now with a chance to attack, stepped in with her broken broomstick. It didn’t take long to kill her.
Taid and Eykit decide to go back to town in order to get Wilbur and talk to Jakkit about possibly getting some help and get the estate. Elitheris and Almë stayed behind, Elitheris to figure out sleeping quarters, and Almë went outside to survey the garden beds and plan how to make them functional.
As he was pulling the occasional weed out of the choked beds, he felt a weight land on his back, followed by a series of needle sharp points sticking into his shoulders. He screamed like a little girl, high pitched and full of terror.
It hit the weedy paver stones, rolled, and bounded into the undergrowth that grew rampant throughout the yard. Almë couldn’t see it, but he knew it was out there. He could feel the blood seeping into his clothing and gambeson.
Not wanting to be within the walls of the courtyard, he walked briskly out the gate and into the fallow fields that stretched to the north of the house. The weeds there were over waist high, but he hoped that the cat-thing would stay near the house.
In any case, it didn’t seem to be nearby. The weeds were very robust, and he knelt down and dug into the soil with his fingers. He raised a handful of earth up, sniffed it, tasted it. His eyes lighted up.
“It’s Essential!” he said aloud. “This is wonderful!” He ran across the field, about 20 paces, and checked the earth again. It too, was Essential earth. He ran several more paces, checking the dirt. All across the northern fields, all of the earth was Essential.
Oh, he thought, if we manage to get these fields up and running, our harvests will be good indeed!
Rewards Granted
Some minor magic items
Some alchemical elixirs
A large arbalest
The Vesten Estate
A top of the line Alchemy lab
A top of the line surgicenter (with a morgue as a bonus)
A series of books about necromancy, including a tome called "The Cult of Ghouls"
A series of books on medicine, physiology, anatomy, and surgery
Some letters
A book of fables from Old Araterre
5 CP
Some alchemical elixirs
A large arbalest
The Vesten Estate
A top of the line Alchemy lab
A top of the line surgicenter (with a morgue as a bonus)
A series of books about necromancy, including a tome called "The Cult of Ghouls"
A series of books on medicine, physiology, anatomy, and surgery
Some letters
A book of fables from Old Araterre
5 CP
Missions/Quests Completed
They killed a necromancer, thus bringing the Strange Case of Bardem Amir to a close.
Character(s) interacted with
Herbert Vesten, sort of. They didn't really interact with him, except with weaponry.
The Arbalest: ST 22 crossbow, 3d imp, ACC 4+2 (using stand), ACC 2 if using the stand but not actually aiming, RoF 1(30), 20 lbs, uses a detachable winch mechanism to recock.
Report Date
30 Dec 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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