Episode 32 - The Absence of Light

Sword of Air

Episode XXXII

The Absence of Light

The Sixteenth Day of Eleint, in the Season of Loende, 2020 N.E.
Miles beneath the surface, down in the deepest darkness never touched by the sun’s rays, a young wereleopard tabaxi stirs. It was a restless night. What little sleep he had was haunted by terrible shrieks and sinister whispers, by disturbing images of solid walls sprouting strange, alien appendages with too many joints, rooms made of living flesh, and… that malevolent, unblinking eye!
Slowly, Lightstrike tries to stand, but his head drains of blood, and, cold sweat springing from his pores, he collapses to the hard floor of the cavern. All is black. Suddenly he feels so lost, so small, so inconsequential beneath the pressing weight of thousands of tons of bedrock above his head. A desperation grips him, a primal urge to flee, yet he cannot move. Paralysed, he lies there, stricken by fear as his oblivious companions sleep.
But then something awakens. A light. Somewhere within him, deep within the loneliest recesses of his soul, a tiny light sparks and flickers. Barely perceptible, crowded by darkness. Brighter it burns, its radiance spreading a white, healing glow through his marrow, through his bones, through vein and artery, out through his flesh and across the surface of his dappled skin. Wordlessly it speaks, warming his heart and lifting his spirit. Lightstrike’s eyes snap open, then narrow, flashing with a glint of grim determination.
Miles beneath the surface, down in the deepest darkness, a single ray of sunlight finds a place to shine.

*

One by one, the Heroes of Yore crawl from their bedrolls and begin making silent preparations for the mortal struggle that surely lies ahead. Not a word is spoken as they chew on their last morsels of Elvenbread. Each is wrapped in their own solemn thoughts.
Haji Baba hoiks the sheaf of lightning javelins over her shoulder, methodically fastens the ornate clasp of her Elven cloak, adjusts the huge, shining, gold Pharaonic headdress of Duorik the Geomancer’s that keeps slipping down over her eyes, and, striking a pose of relaxed power, pulls her goggles of eagle’s sight solemnly over her eyes.
Lightstrike stifles a giggle, and catches Mherren’s eye, who explodes with guffaws of laughter, rolling around on the floor until his ribs hurt and tears stream down his face. After three long minutes, he pulls himself together, catches sight of Haji Baba, and collapses into another fit of uncontrollable hysterics.
“Shhh!” hisses Kla’rota. “We are not far from the Sunless Sea. Stupid orc! You will draw the attention of an entire city upon us. Be thankful for my helm. So long as you all stay close, you are protected from the psychic web of the Illithid hives.”
Zimlok is intently studying his spell book, by a dim magical light that he summoned rather ostentatiously to his fingertips, whilst absent-mindedly chewing on grubs that he intermittently plucks from the cavern floor. Closing the tome with a theatrical snap, he begins inspecting the dragon amulet from the Dead Calm, and trying to get the general knack for Haji Baba’s thunder staff (which she has reluctantly loaned to him for the coming ordeal). “Hmmm… yyyyeeeesss… I see…” he muses loudly, to the obvious irritation of Kla’rota.
It’s not easy reading a Mind Flayer’s expression, but Kla’rota’s is one of unmistakable exasperation. His tentacles flail petulantly as he traces a crude map in the remaining sediment that covers the floor of this dried-up well. “Here is the Sunless Sea,” he rasps as the Fellowship gathers round, indicating a large area in the centre of his drawing. “Around it is a perimeter of rock. It would be difficult going for you, as it is bristling with stalagmites and littered with the ruins of ancient Dwarven settlements. But, at least, these might offer some protection against being seen.
“Suspended above are the great hives of Ilthe Ba’Manza – the Illactites of my people. And at the far side of the Sunless Sea, hunched upon a huge outcrop beyond a wide ravine, is the citadel of Runor: the deepest of the three Dwarven fortresses of the Cyclopean Deeps: Hvela, Nidlhammer, and Runor itself. There is whither Xargraata has taken the Elder Brain. Its sickness has left the hive mind weakened, yet still intact enough to maintain the psychic network and to keep the Deep Dwarfs subjugated. Xargraata has exploited its weakness to seize control of Ilthe Ba’Manza.”
“And you say it is the Beholder who has caused this sickness?” asks Haji Baba.
“It seems likely,” Kla’rota nods. “The Elder Brain began to weaken when the Eye Tyrant came. Whence it came, I know not. Nor the ultimate cause of this disease. It rots, and it mutates, corrupting things beyond recognition. But Xargraata saw his opportunity and allied himself with K’Varn and his Gauth henchman.”
“Gauth?”
“Yesss. Varg is smaller. Weaker, but nonetheless dangerous. Underestimate it at your peril.”
“Is there anything else in there we should know about?”
“Perhaps there are guards. I cannot say. Although K’Varn is arrogant. He thinks himself invincible. Xargraata has helped him to subdue Moradin and bend the Duergar to his will. Next I believe K’Varn will try to bring Llolth and the Drow to his cause.”
“What is his cause?”
“I wish I knew. When I pried, the Ulitharid threw me to the Grell. He fears my sorcery, although I am not sure that I am truly his match. That is why I need your help.”
“And the Drow?” asks Mherren. “Who are they?”
“You would call them Dark Elves, I think. They are a matriarchal society, who worship the Goddess of Spiders. They are enemies of the Duergar. Slavers. I admire their cruelty. But their brains taste yucky.”
“And this tunnel you have drawn here on the map?” asks Zimlok.
“This one leads to Arach-Lluth, the city of the Dark Elves. That one, back to Nidlhammer. And here…” he points a long, bony finger at two lines wrapping around the citadel. “Here are tributaries to the Hlokeduin, the great underground river from Qualimor that we used to navigate to the Melds.”
“That could be our ticket out of here,” suggests Zimlok. “Ningauble said we should head down, into the belly of the earth. …And something about a sleeping beast and the heart of things. …But I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Lightstrike and Mherren exchange uneasy glances.
“I advise caution,” wheezes Kla’rota. “The river drains out to the Lake of Bones and the Gasping Ocean, far to the east. But enroute there surely are deadly sumps, bone-breaking falls, whirlpools and swallow holes, and long miles entirely devoid of air pockets. To go that way would be sssuicide.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Zimlok says again, breezily.
Lightstrike and Mherren simultaneously gulp.

*

Five silhouettes peer cautiously out from behind a giant stalagmite, upon the eerie vista of Ilthe Ba’Manza.
Above the great, dark expanse of the Sunless Sea, a dozen enormous, hive-like structures moulded from the living rock hang down almost to its still, glittering surface. Sickly green clouds of diseased, psionic energy obscure some of the Illactites from view, but others are clearly girdled by spiralling walkways upon which can just be discerned the silent, floating shadows of hundreds of Mind Flayers going about their alien lives.
The only sounds are the gentle lapping of water against the rocky shore, and the occasional plop of a surfacing fish.
“What lives in the water?” whispers Haji Baba.
Kla’rota speaks directly into their minds: “There are creatures in there, no doubt. Glimmerfish, for sure. They are harmless enough. We feed on their brains when Grimlocks, Duergar and Svirfneblin are in short supply. A paltry meal, they make. But what else lies beneath the surface, I do not know. We Illithids do not make a habit of ssswimming.”
The adventurers make their final preparations. Viper takes Quasit form, and vanishes. Kla’rota casts a spell of invisibility upon Mherren and Haji Baba, while Lightstrike magically disguises himself as a Mind Flayer. Then he whips off Zimlok’s trademark wizard’s hat, to silent protestations, and jams the hat of disguise over the Kenku’s eyes. In place of Zimlok, another Mind Flayer stares back.
“Thisss way,” comes the asthmatic wheeze of Kla’rota in their minds, and, with the aid of Lightstrike’s ring of tracelessness, three fleeting shadows move almost imperceptibly around the dark perimeter of the huge cavern.
Cautiously passing the mouth of the tunnel leading to Arach-Lluth, they become aware of a faint buzzing sound ahead. Haji Baba immediately puts her socks in her ears. Standard protocol.
The buzzing grows louder, and a seething, cloud-like mass comes into view, blacker than the surrounding darkness, but nevertheless apparent to the heroes’ darkvision. Louder comes the buzzing. Larger and closer grows the cloud.
Zimlok pegs it towards the water, Mherren close on his heels.
“Stirges!” rasps Kla’rota.
“Wha’?” says Lightstrike.
“Stirges! Blood-sucking pests. In great number they can be lethal. I have no magic I can use against them that would not draw attention to usss. We must run!” Lightstrike, hiding amongst the stalagmites, looks out to get a better look at what assails them. Haji Baba does likewise, peering out from beneath her fragment of flail snail shell.
And the cloud is upon them.
A swarm of bat-winged, mosquito-like creatures as big as sewer rats descends upon them, and the air is filled with the horrific beating of a myriad leathery wings. Haji Baba cranes her neck in and hunkers beneath her shell like a hairy-footed turtle. Lightstrike beats them back, and, activating his boots of haste†, grabs Kla’rota and makes a dash for it. But the Illithid cannot keep stride with the fleet-footed rogue. He falls beneath the stirge swarm with a guttural cry, as hundreds of thirsty proboscises puncture his skin and feast on his blood.

*

“Phew!” sighs Zimlok. “That was a close call.”
The diminutive wizard, still disguised as a Mind Flayer, breathes hard from beneath his tentacles, and nearly jumps out of his feathers when Mherren the Invisible says: “Yup,” mere inches from his ear.
“Do you have to stand so close?”
“Sorry.”
They stay in shallow waters, edging around the smooth-worn, granite shoreline. Darting between their legs and nibbling pleasantly at their toes are several large, iridescent fish with beautiful pink and turquoise scales. These must be the glimmerfish of which Kla’rota had spoken.
Suddenly the glimmerfish scatter, as an ominous bow wave surges towards them. With his quick Kenku reactions, Zimlok hoofs it out of the water, wet orcish footsteps slapping behind him. And just in time, for a boiling mass of ugly, piranha-like quippers, obviously attracted by the traces of food nibbled from our heroes’ skin by the glimmerfish, turns the water they have just vacated into a broiling, red soup of fish blood.
“Phew!” sighs Zimlok. “That was a close call.”
“Yup.”
“I asked you not to do that.”
“Sorry.”

*

When Mherren and Zimlok go to join their friends, they find the stirge swarm has had its fill and moved on to continue its vampiric search. A Mind Flayer kneels over the stricken form of Kla’rota.
Mherren moves for the hilt of Pyron, but Zimlok stays his hand.
“It’s Lightstrike, you idiot! He’s disguised, remember? Like I am.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”
Lightstrike instinctively lays his hands on Kla’rota’s body, which still breathes – barely – and is covered in puncture wounds and seeping purple blood. A white light seems to emanate from Lightstrike’s palms, and Kla’rota’s wounds begin to close before their eyes. His breathing grows deeper, more stable.
“Thank you, leopard-man. I am in your debt,” he gasps weakly, and staggers unsteadily upright.
Slowly they make their way to the Dwarven ruins opposite the citadel. As they scurry to find shelter in the most intact building they can find, Haji Baba glances up warily at the closest Illithid hive looming overhead. The Mind Flayers upon the spiral walkways appear to be carrying on with their business regardless. It would seem their struggle has gone unheeded by the psychic beings above, doubtless in part due to Kla’rota’s psionic-resistant helm, and Lightstrike’s magical ring.
Staking out the citadel, they notice that while the stout, Dwarven architecture is largely unravished by time, many of its small windows are without panes. Some are lit with the flickering orange glow of candles. A long bridge decorated intermittently with stone statues of Dwarfs standing upon tall pedestals spans a deep ravine, at the bottom of which can be heard the rush of water. The bridge and statues are partly obfuscated by an unnatural mist that spills over the sides, the source of which is unclear.
Two blazing torches frame the heavy main doors of Runor, around which the head of a helmed and bearded dwarf is expertly sculpted, so that the double doors resemble its open mouth. Two crenelated curtain walls with squat turrets on either side form the fortress’s impenetrable façade.
“I’ll send my clockwork mouse to investigate the bridge,” says Lightstrike, and whispers instructions into its delicate, beaten-brass ears. Unfortunately, and rather irritatingly, unbeknownst to him the mouse has been programmed to do the opposite of whatever it is told, and it duly scuttles off towards the lake. Mherren turns Viper into a bat, and he flies off invisibly in search of the mechanical rodent.
With her attention thus drawn in the direction of the Sunless Sea, Haji Baba hears a faint disturbance in the water, and rushes to a rear window just in time to see a bizarre and unfeasible creature emerging from the lake. A fleshy orb, around four feet in diameter, with several protruding appendages, including multiple eye stalks, and a single large eye in the centre of its torso-less body, momentarily floats, dripping, above the surface, before flying up and overhead, out of view. In its wide mouth, filled with nasty, needle-like teeth, the druid is sure she sees a live, flopping glimmerfish.
Rushing back to the front window, Haji Baba spots the creature and points.
“There!” she whispers hoarsely.
“Varg.” Kla’rota enunciates the name with repugnance. The horrific entity floats over the walls, and disappears behind the castellations, down into the citadel. Mherren nudges Lightstrike. “Did you see that thing?”
Lightstrike peeks out from between his fingers. After his disturbing vision of the Eye in the Myconid Meld, he hadn’t dared to look.

*

Viper, impish Quasit of the Abyss, and, for now, invisible pet bat of Mherren the Malevolent, flies silently through one of the open windows and into the top floor of the fortress of Runor. He flits along a dark, cold, stone corridor, passing several closed doors and one, ajar, that leads into an empty, candlelit room. Continuing down the corridor, he comes to a stairwell, and descends two flights to an atrium with an open, external window. There are two exits: one locked door, and another that creaks open to reveal a grand, square, marble-floored chamber. Carved deeply into the marble are Dwarven runes that Mherren, seeing through Viper’s eyes, manages to interpret. They say: Here lies illustrious Durthane of Runor, who acceded to the infinite wisdom of Uden. Alas, he perished in fire.
Threadbare tapestries hang from the high walls, and dust-caked bowls, pewter goblets, silver candlesticks and ceramic vases populate stout tables around the perimeter. A gallery runs around three sides above, and there is a conspicuous hole in the ceiling, directly above a pile of rubble on the floor. There is a door in the centre of each wall. The one opposite Viper resembles the one he just edged through. To his right is a heavy, wooden double door that would appear to be the interior side of the main entrance at the bridge. To his left is another double door, this one made of gilt iron. Viper transforms into his Quasit form and pads towards it. He hears voices on the other side.
The first is rasping and obsequious. “You don’t look too great, master. You have been gone a long time. Is everything all right, master? Did all go to plan?”
The second is deeper, more guttural. “I’ve got a headache, that’s all. You ask too many questions… Hmm. It is still weakening. Good. Now where is Bob? I’ve missed him sorely. Take me to him at once. Then I shall attend to the prisoners. Soon we shall be entertaining visitors.”
“Of course, master. This way, master.”
The voices fade, but Viper hears no footsteps, nor hears the clunk of any doors.

*

Zimlok the Lightbringer, taking the form of a tall, slender Illithid, stands wide-legged at the edge of the precipitous ravine, his hips thrust forwards, his eyes closed, chanting an arcane incantation and gesticulating wildly. The shimmering form of an ethereal bridge begins to coalesce before him, adjacent to the bridge of sinking mists, leaping in an elegant arc from this side of the chasm to the steep, granite outcrop upon which the citadel of Runor hunkers.
“Come! We only have a few minutes to cross!” he squawks, and another two Illithids hurry across the magical pontoon, one of which looks severely injured.
Any observers would not notice two more individuals who follow, for they are invisible to the naked eye. This is perhaps fortunate, for one is vertically challenged and wears a ridiculous, oversized golden headdress and steampunk goggles, whilst the other is balletically flapping his musclebound, half-orcish arms and pretending to fly. In some dark dimension the Demogorgon scowls.
Upon reaching the far side, the companions clamber over precarious, jagged boulders, and find the open window into the atrium that Viper had passed through. They climb inside, although Kla’rota, in his weakened state, dislodges some crumbling stonework, and rubble bounces noisily down into the river far below.
They push through into the large, marble-floored chamber to find Viper, feet braced against the jamb, heaving and straining with all his might against the iron door. But in vain, for the door does not budge an inch. Viper collapses to the floor in a perspiring heap.