Chapter 3-20 - The Order of the Pen
Juliana led the second team through the Lower Ward of the city, through a labyrinth of narrow streets which wound dizzyingly through the shadows of closely backed tall stone buildings. While this route travelled through sections of the city ranging from clearly affluent, to clearly not, the architecture of the buildings was consistently impressive. Each building was distinct, with slender archways and delicate crystalline buttresses. The facades adorned with intricate decorative stonework. Similar to the other Verani constructions the party had seen since the Kanaalden Mort, each structure had been formed out of living stone rather than constructed from block as in the Empire. The few people who passed by studiously avoided eye contact with their neighbours, which made the journey much easier to accomplish without drawing any attention.
In the centre of an open, tree-lined plaza; a narrow octagonal tower soared high above the surrounding buildings. The walls appeared to be made of polished amethyst, the smooth surface clouded with glittering bands of milky white. The Order of the Pen.
The tower maintained its octagonal shape almost uninterrupted through its full height, with the exception of four positions where it expands outward to a larger disc shape. Violet lights gleamed around the circumference of the four cylindrical sections.
The group had agreed to split into two teams. Juliana and Ramas would pose as members of the Order, and explore the inside of the tower. Meanwhile, Miaug, Clootie and Arina would take up a watch position atop a five storey building on the edge of the plaza. Ramas and Juliana draped themselves in long purple-hued robes, of the style typically worn by novices of the Order of the Pen. Ramas slipped the communication ruby under the wrap next to his ear, to function as a communication device with Miaug on her perch. Then he and Juliana waved to their companions, who slipped into the open door of the other building, and they entered the tower.
The main door opened into a wide room, roughly trapezoidal in shape. The walls tapered in at an angle towards the centre of the building; and in each wall, double doors led out into the tower. The far wall of the room was filled by a large amethyst crystal reception desk. Two large purple banners adorned the wall behind the desk, each bearing a stylised icon of a quill and ink. Behind the desk sat a young man with short cropped brown hair, and a bright purple scarf wrapped around the upper part of his right arm. He seemed engrossed in a book, which held on his lap. He looked up as Ramas and Juliana entered,
"Do you have an appointment?" he asked, then recognising their robes he nodded and returned his head to his book, waving them through the left hand side door absently.
Beyond the door, a narrow corridor led into a hallway at the back side of the tower. In the walls of the corridor, long barred windows opened into a heavily populated guard room. The soldiers inside wore the purple heraldry of the Order of the Pen. With expertly feigned confidence, Ramas and Juliana strode through the corridor, ignoring the guards, who returned the favour. At the end of the hallway, they doubled back on themselves and came to a wide central staircase leading up the tower.
The duo made their way up the first eight floors uneventfully. As they walked up the empty stairs and through largely unoccupied corridors, Ramas asked Juliana to teach him a couple of simple Verani phrases, in case he got questioned directly. Juliana tried her best, but Ramas’s eyes quickly glazed over and his pronunciation remained atrocious. Miaug, listening in through the ruby, quickly mastered a few of the phrases. The initial floors they explored were mostly given over to training classrooms and arcane practice labs. These areas were obviously open access to all members of the Order, and none of the few practitioners they passed paid them much heed. As they reached the ninth floor, they turned a corner and literally ran into a middled aged, balding man dressed in the more ornate robe of an adept. His eyes narrowed as he glared at the pair. He barked an order in Verani,
“What are you doing here? This is an administrative floor. Students aren’t allowed up here. Get back downstairs to class!”
Ramas tensed at the Verani’s tone, not understanding the words; but Juliana placed a hand on his arm to urge caution before she responded.
“I’m sorry sir. We were just exploring. We’ll go”
The man gave them a perfunctory nod, satisfied, and watched them disappear back to the central staircase.
Once around the corner, Juliana explained what the Verani had said. Ramas nodded his understanding, then asked Juliana to hang back while he snuck on ahead to check the path was clear. Juliana watched the half-elf disappear up the corridor. Even in the limited cover offered inside the tower, Ramas had a near uncanny ability to disappear into even the smallest shadowy recess in the dimly lit passageways. After he checked the passage to the next staircase, he turned back and beckoned Juliana to join him. She hurried along through the corridors, trying to act nonchalant.
Together they travelled the administrative floors in the same manner, Ramas scouting ahead like a ghost. Occasionally he would poke his head into doorways, mostly out of curiosity. Usually the staff inside were to busy to notice him. Although, at one door on the tenth floor a Verani adept looked up and started to mutter a series of questions in Verani. Ramas froze, totally unsure what to do. His hand tightened reflexively around the hilt of his dark dagger.. Then Miaug’s voice came through the ruby strapped to his head, feeding him some of the Verani phrases Juliana had taught them. He haltingly repeated her words, informing the Verani office worker that he was sorry to disturb him and that he was lost looking for the toilet. The Verani lost interest, looking back down at his work and gesturing vaguely along the corridor.
On the eleventh floor, Ramas was returning to Juliana, having scouted the route to the next staircase. As he slipped along the corridors, he collided with a Verani in an ornate adept’s robe. It was the same bald man they had encountered on the eighth floor. He looked at Ramas, not obviously recognising him, and barked something in Verani. Ramas tried to repeat the same phrase that had worked previously, but without Miaug talking in his ear he mispronounced it. The adept stared at him suspiciously, recognition beginning to dawn on his face. He drew in a breath, about to shout for aid, when Ramas drove his dark dagger through his ear and into his brain. The man stiffened instantly, then began to twitch. His face drew gaunt, seeming to collapse in on itself, as his soul was absorbed into the lightless black blade of the dagger.
Juliana, seeing this unfold, hurried along the corridor to assist Ramas. She watched in horror as the dagger exploded into a nest of inky black tendrils, which wrapped around Ramas’s forearm. Reacting quickly, Ramas pushed open the nearest door and slipped inside. Luckily, the office appeared deserted. As Juliana entered she heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking, and Ramas let out a low groan of agony, as the black tendril mass crushed his forearm. Juliana nearly vomited as his arm snapped backwards, cracking his elbow. Ramas’s eyes rolled up in his head, but he managed to remain conscious through the pain. With his free hand, he unsheathed Lament and passed it to Juliana,
“Quickly! Cut it off!”
He grunted again, slumping to the floor, as the mass crumpled the lower part of his bicep. Juliana swallowed hard and steeled herself, then drove Lament into the flesh of his upper arm. The pain burst behind Ramas’s eyes, and a wave of blackness drowned him.
Ramas opened his eyes to find the pain had stopped. He looked around, trying to take stock of his surroundings. He stood on a flat circular plane of polished purple crystal, apparently floating in the midst of a howling gale. Around the edge, an impenetrable wall of wind shrieked like a raging beast. In the centre of the disc floated a churning sphere of amorphous shadow, twisting and pulsing like a vast, tenebrous heart. A massive tendril of twisting shadow whipped out from the shadowy orb, striking the ground directly in front of him,
"Uh uh uh. Stay still, little cockroach... We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself..."
The tendril pulled a massive spike of jagged purple quartz from the ground.
Undeterred, Ramas leaned casually against the newly created quartz pillar,
"Alright boss"
Ramas could sense a palpable amusement emanating from the pulsating sphere,
"I like your style mortal - now stay still, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself"
A second tendril struck the ground beside him, ripping another quartz pillar out of the ground. Ramas realised that he was getting hemmed in, and dodged around the pillar, running directly at the orb of darkness. Something seemed to respond to his intent, and a small dagger of pulsating purple light appeared in his right hand. He threw himself forward and drove the dagger into the centre of the orb. He felt no resistance as his hand passed through the shadowy mass. Of course it couldn’t be that easy, he thought wryly. A sudden blast of icy energy erupted from the core, throwing him backwards with some force. Gravity appeared to be slightly less here, wherever they were, and Ramas found himself sailing through the air towards the whirling wall of wind,
"No!"
The voice sounded momentarily panicked, and a shadowy tendril whipped out, solidifying and knocking him down to the ground mere moments before he struck the tempest. Ramas rolled to his feet, diving out of the way as the creature pulled up another quartz pillar beside him. Whatever was going on, the creature didn’t want him to reach the edge of the disc. Bracing his foot against the quartz pillar, like a runner in a starting block, Ramas ran full speed towards the whirling vortex. Another tendril slammed down, trying to pin him, but he nimbly danced aside and leapt towards the wall of wind. He reached out with his right hand. As he touched the surface of the cyclone, thousands of tiny jagged particles carried in the wind tore at his flesh. Reacting as though burned, he instinctively drew back his hand to find nothing but a bloody stump where it had contacted the terrible wind. In shock at the unexpected mutilation, Ramas didn’t notice a shadowy tendril strike him in the back, knocking him to the floor. Another crystal spire suddenly rose from the ground in front of his face.
“Please don’t do that again. I don’t want you to hurt yourself”
Ramas looked around at the tiny platform surrounded and quickly realised that the creature wasn’t trying to harm him, it was seeking to trap him in a cage of these quartz pillars. But with a sinking feeling, he also realised that before long he would soon run out of room to evade, as more and more of the platform was plucked up by these shadowy tendrils. Ramas realised he needed to change his tactics. He threw himself towards the whirling cyclone once more,
"What are you doing?" the voice started to sound infuriated as another shadowy tendril knocked him back at the last second. The tendril touched the surface of the tempest and the voice let out a growl of pain,
"What is wrong with you?! Do you want to die?"
“Not particularly. But I’m not keen on being your plaything either”
“I don’t want to play - I want my life back. I want my vengeance” the voice screamed at him
“Vengeance?” Ramas sounded confused as he dodged another whipping tendril, “What have I done to you?”
“Not vengeance on you. You’re just a vessel. I want my revenge on Levistus”
Ramas stopped,
“Hold on. What?”
The tendrils stopped for a moment, and the shadowy sphere collapsed into a humanoid shape, like a three dimensional silhouette of a woman. The figure regarded Ramas, her eyes pinpricks of light in churning black mass,
“My name is Volux. I was the paramour of Geryon, and together we ruled Stygia for millenia - Duke and Duchess of the Fifth Circle. Then we were betrayed by that snake Asmodeous. He deposed us, handing our lands over to Levistus, and imprisoning both of us. Geryon was imprisoned deep within Stygia, but my body was destroyed and I was trapped inside a blade in the mortal realm. You and your companions released Geryon, and then he arranged for you to come into ownership of my dagger. Your wonderful tithe of innocent souls has released me. Now I need to find a new body and find my way back to my beloved, then we can reclaim our rightful place as Lord and Lady of Stygia.”
Ramas considered for a moment,
“I could help you? Find a new body I mean, one where nobody is fighting you for control. If you help me for a while, I will help you find a new, better body. One more befitting your status. And I’ll help you get your revenge.”
Volux looked surprised, then a slow smile crept across her face. Grinning like a shark, she grabbed Ramas’s hand, causing burning pain to explode along his arm,
“You have a deal”
Ramas woke up to see Juliana standing over him, her face a mask of desperation and concern. Relief washed over her as her eyes locked with his,
“Are you ok?” she held out a hand to help him up. Ramas nodded and reached out with his right hand to grab hers and then snatched it back in shock. His right arm was jet black, looking almost polished smooth but oddly, no light reflected from the smooth surface. It seemed to absorb the light around it. He flexed his fingers, watching in confusion as they responded perfectly. He started to sit up, and then winced as a sharp pain exploded in his shoulder. He looked down to see the hilt of Lament still sticking out of his flesh,
“Oh sorry!” Juliana said quickly, then placed her foot on his chest and yanked the blade out. Ramas stifled a scream. But nearly instantaneously the fiery pain was extinguished by a wave of cold that seemed to wash up his arm. He looked down in surprise as tiny black tendrils seemed to knit the wound back together. A sibilant feminine voice whispered in the back of his mind,
“You’re welcome. Now remember our deal”
Ramas and Juliana got back to their feet, reassessing their position. The corpse of the unfortunate Verani official Ramas had killed still lay on the floor of the office. Juliana looked down at the body,
“We need to hide that. If anyone finds a body, they’ll relocate the meeting and everything will be for nothing.”
Ramas looked at the body, briefly considering if he could cut it into pieces to make it easier to hide. To his surprise, Ramas’s right arm reacted and the onyx flesh flowed like oily liquid into the form of a massive serrated blade. Ramas shook his head,
“Calm down - we’re not doing that.”
His arm returned to its normal shape. He could sense a faint disappointment from Volux. He was surprised how quickly he’d adjusted to this new state of affairs.
Ramas waiting outside in the hallway while Juliana quickly changed into the Adept’s robes. Hopefully that would avoid any further interactions as they continued. Together they propped the corpse up against the wall. Juliana used her transmutation magic to render the wall partially fluid, and they managed to hide the body inside the wall itself, leaving only a small bulge in the surface to indicate it’s resting place. As a hiding place, it should stand up to light scrutiny and hopefully should prevent the alarm being raised before the Grandmasters meeting.
Their tracks covered, and Juliana in a new disguise, together they continued their ascent through floors filled with libraries, administrative offices and practitioner rooms. None of the members of the Order they passed gave them a second glance thanks to Juliana’s stolen uniform, and they reached the 15th floor without incident, where the staircase ended in a large featureless octagonal chamber.
Ornate doors were set into each wall of the chamber. Regular explosions could be heard emanating from behind the far left door. Cautiously the pair decided to explore through some of the other doors first. Each door they checked opened into empty laboratories, each contains simple desks and furniture, and trays of various magical paraphernalia. Ramas looked over at the final door, the explosion door,
“Ok. I’ll go torture whoever is in there and get some directions”
Juliana balked,
“Hold on a second. Let me try something first. In here”
She led him into one of the empty rooms, eager to avoid further bloodshed. She climbed up on top of the desk, taking care not to knock any of the mysterious jars over as she did so. Then she reached up and placed her hand on the smooth stone of the ceiling and closed her eyes. She reached out with her stone sense, feeling through the material over her head. There it was, she knew it. She opened her eyes and smiled triumphantly at Ramas,
“There’s another room overhead. A big one. That’s got to be the meeting chamber”
“So how do we get there?”
“That’s easy”
She slipped her hands into the stone surface, and with a grunt of effort she pulled open a small hole, like a trapdoor between this room and the chamber above. Ramas chuckled in appreciation,
“Ok then. That’ll do it.”
He then reached out with his right hand. The smooth black flesh stretched up into the hole like a tendril of obsidian. His finger stretched and twisted like tentacles, curling around the lip of the hole; then he was whisked up into the council chamber.
Ramas quickly took in his surroundings with a trained eye. The room was a large octagonal chamber, brightly illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the enormous crystal skylight overhead. In the centre of the chamber, atop a square dias, stood an imposing octagonal table of black crystal.
Eight thrones were located around the table. Each appeared to be carved out of a different gemstone. Having confirmed there was no movement in the chamber, Ramas reached down through the hole and grabbed a hold of Juliana’s hand, pulling her up through the floor. The pair caught their breath for a moment, then fully explored the chamber. There didn’t appear to be any door into the room, but Juliana identified circles of arcane glyphs etched into the stone floor around the edge of the room, each emitting the faintest blue glow. Teleportation circles that the Grandmasters would likely use to teleport directly into the room. After a full sweep of the chamber, they agreed that the best place to hide the bombs would probably be inside the dias beneath the table. Confident they had learned all they could, they slipped back down through the hole in the floor, which Juliana resealed, and together they headed back to the safe house.
Next: Chapter 3-21 - The Council Meeting
Previous: Chapter 3-19 - The Order of the Shield
In the centre of an open, tree-lined plaza; a narrow octagonal tower soared high above the surrounding buildings. The walls appeared to be made of polished amethyst, the smooth surface clouded with glittering bands of milky white. The Order of the Pen.
The tower maintained its octagonal shape almost uninterrupted through its full height, with the exception of four positions where it expands outward to a larger disc shape. Violet lights gleamed around the circumference of the four cylindrical sections.
The group had agreed to split into two teams. Juliana and Ramas would pose as members of the Order, and explore the inside of the tower. Meanwhile, Miaug, Clootie and Arina would take up a watch position atop a five storey building on the edge of the plaza. Ramas and Juliana draped themselves in long purple-hued robes, of the style typically worn by novices of the Order of the Pen. Ramas slipped the communication ruby under the wrap next to his ear, to function as a communication device with Miaug on her perch. Then he and Juliana waved to their companions, who slipped into the open door of the other building, and they entered the tower.
The main door opened into a wide room, roughly trapezoidal in shape. The walls tapered in at an angle towards the centre of the building; and in each wall, double doors led out into the tower. The far wall of the room was filled by a large amethyst crystal reception desk. Two large purple banners adorned the wall behind the desk, each bearing a stylised icon of a quill and ink. Behind the desk sat a young man with short cropped brown hair, and a bright purple scarf wrapped around the upper part of his right arm. He seemed engrossed in a book, which held on his lap. He looked up as Ramas and Juliana entered,
"Do you have an appointment?" he asked, then recognising their robes he nodded and returned his head to his book, waving them through the left hand side door absently.
Beyond the door, a narrow corridor led into a hallway at the back side of the tower. In the walls of the corridor, long barred windows opened into a heavily populated guard room. The soldiers inside wore the purple heraldry of the Order of the Pen. With expertly feigned confidence, Ramas and Juliana strode through the corridor, ignoring the guards, who returned the favour. At the end of the hallway, they doubled back on themselves and came to a wide central staircase leading up the tower.
The duo made their way up the first eight floors uneventfully. As they walked up the empty stairs and through largely unoccupied corridors, Ramas asked Juliana to teach him a couple of simple Verani phrases, in case he got questioned directly. Juliana tried her best, but Ramas’s eyes quickly glazed over and his pronunciation remained atrocious. Miaug, listening in through the ruby, quickly mastered a few of the phrases. The initial floors they explored were mostly given over to training classrooms and arcane practice labs. These areas were obviously open access to all members of the Order, and none of the few practitioners they passed paid them much heed. As they reached the ninth floor, they turned a corner and literally ran into a middled aged, balding man dressed in the more ornate robe of an adept. His eyes narrowed as he glared at the pair. He barked an order in Verani,
“What are you doing here? This is an administrative floor. Students aren’t allowed up here. Get back downstairs to class!”
Ramas tensed at the Verani’s tone, not understanding the words; but Juliana placed a hand on his arm to urge caution before she responded.
“I’m sorry sir. We were just exploring. We’ll go”
The man gave them a perfunctory nod, satisfied, and watched them disappear back to the central staircase.
Once around the corner, Juliana explained what the Verani had said. Ramas nodded his understanding, then asked Juliana to hang back while he snuck on ahead to check the path was clear. Juliana watched the half-elf disappear up the corridor. Even in the limited cover offered inside the tower, Ramas had a near uncanny ability to disappear into even the smallest shadowy recess in the dimly lit passageways. After he checked the passage to the next staircase, he turned back and beckoned Juliana to join him. She hurried along through the corridors, trying to act nonchalant.
Together they travelled the administrative floors in the same manner, Ramas scouting ahead like a ghost. Occasionally he would poke his head into doorways, mostly out of curiosity. Usually the staff inside were to busy to notice him. Although, at one door on the tenth floor a Verani adept looked up and started to mutter a series of questions in Verani. Ramas froze, totally unsure what to do. His hand tightened reflexively around the hilt of his dark dagger.. Then Miaug’s voice came through the ruby strapped to his head, feeding him some of the Verani phrases Juliana had taught them. He haltingly repeated her words, informing the Verani office worker that he was sorry to disturb him and that he was lost looking for the toilet. The Verani lost interest, looking back down at his work and gesturing vaguely along the corridor.
On the eleventh floor, Ramas was returning to Juliana, having scouted the route to the next staircase. As he slipped along the corridors, he collided with a Verani in an ornate adept’s robe. It was the same bald man they had encountered on the eighth floor. He looked at Ramas, not obviously recognising him, and barked something in Verani. Ramas tried to repeat the same phrase that had worked previously, but without Miaug talking in his ear he mispronounced it. The adept stared at him suspiciously, recognition beginning to dawn on his face. He drew in a breath, about to shout for aid, when Ramas drove his dark dagger through his ear and into his brain. The man stiffened instantly, then began to twitch. His face drew gaunt, seeming to collapse in on itself, as his soul was absorbed into the lightless black blade of the dagger.
Juliana, seeing this unfold, hurried along the corridor to assist Ramas. She watched in horror as the dagger exploded into a nest of inky black tendrils, which wrapped around Ramas’s forearm. Reacting quickly, Ramas pushed open the nearest door and slipped inside. Luckily, the office appeared deserted. As Juliana entered she heard the sickening crunch of bones breaking, and Ramas let out a low groan of agony, as the black tendril mass crushed his forearm. Juliana nearly vomited as his arm snapped backwards, cracking his elbow. Ramas’s eyes rolled up in his head, but he managed to remain conscious through the pain. With his free hand, he unsheathed Lament and passed it to Juliana,
“Quickly! Cut it off!”
He grunted again, slumping to the floor, as the mass crumpled the lower part of his bicep. Juliana swallowed hard and steeled herself, then drove Lament into the flesh of his upper arm. The pain burst behind Ramas’s eyes, and a wave of blackness drowned him.
Ramas opened his eyes to find the pain had stopped. He looked around, trying to take stock of his surroundings. He stood on a flat circular plane of polished purple crystal, apparently floating in the midst of a howling gale. Around the edge, an impenetrable wall of wind shrieked like a raging beast. In the centre of the disc floated a churning sphere of amorphous shadow, twisting and pulsing like a vast, tenebrous heart. A massive tendril of twisting shadow whipped out from the shadowy orb, striking the ground directly in front of him,
"Uh uh uh. Stay still, little cockroach... We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself..."
The tendril pulled a massive spike of jagged purple quartz from the ground.
Undeterred, Ramas leaned casually against the newly created quartz pillar,
"Alright boss"
Ramas could sense a palpable amusement emanating from the pulsating sphere,
"I like your style mortal - now stay still, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself"
A second tendril struck the ground beside him, ripping another quartz pillar out of the ground. Ramas realised that he was getting hemmed in, and dodged around the pillar, running directly at the orb of darkness. Something seemed to respond to his intent, and a small dagger of pulsating purple light appeared in his right hand. He threw himself forward and drove the dagger into the centre of the orb. He felt no resistance as his hand passed through the shadowy mass. Of course it couldn’t be that easy, he thought wryly. A sudden blast of icy energy erupted from the core, throwing him backwards with some force. Gravity appeared to be slightly less here, wherever they were, and Ramas found himself sailing through the air towards the whirling wall of wind,
"No!"
The voice sounded momentarily panicked, and a shadowy tendril whipped out, solidifying and knocking him down to the ground mere moments before he struck the tempest. Ramas rolled to his feet, diving out of the way as the creature pulled up another quartz pillar beside him. Whatever was going on, the creature didn’t want him to reach the edge of the disc. Bracing his foot against the quartz pillar, like a runner in a starting block, Ramas ran full speed towards the whirling vortex. Another tendril slammed down, trying to pin him, but he nimbly danced aside and leapt towards the wall of wind. He reached out with his right hand. As he touched the surface of the cyclone, thousands of tiny jagged particles carried in the wind tore at his flesh. Reacting as though burned, he instinctively drew back his hand to find nothing but a bloody stump where it had contacted the terrible wind. In shock at the unexpected mutilation, Ramas didn’t notice a shadowy tendril strike him in the back, knocking him to the floor. Another crystal spire suddenly rose from the ground in front of his face.
“Please don’t do that again. I don’t want you to hurt yourself”
Ramas looked around at the tiny platform surrounded and quickly realised that the creature wasn’t trying to harm him, it was seeking to trap him in a cage of these quartz pillars. But with a sinking feeling, he also realised that before long he would soon run out of room to evade, as more and more of the platform was plucked up by these shadowy tendrils. Ramas realised he needed to change his tactics. He threw himself towards the whirling cyclone once more,
"What are you doing?" the voice started to sound infuriated as another shadowy tendril knocked him back at the last second. The tendril touched the surface of the tempest and the voice let out a growl of pain,
"What is wrong with you?! Do you want to die?"
“Not particularly. But I’m not keen on being your plaything either”
“I don’t want to play - I want my life back. I want my vengeance” the voice screamed at him
“Vengeance?” Ramas sounded confused as he dodged another whipping tendril, “What have I done to you?”
“Not vengeance on you. You’re just a vessel. I want my revenge on Levistus”
Ramas stopped,
“Hold on. What?”
The tendrils stopped for a moment, and the shadowy sphere collapsed into a humanoid shape, like a three dimensional silhouette of a woman. The figure regarded Ramas, her eyes pinpricks of light in churning black mass,
“My name is Volux. I was the paramour of Geryon, and together we ruled Stygia for millenia - Duke and Duchess of the Fifth Circle. Then we were betrayed by that snake Asmodeous. He deposed us, handing our lands over to Levistus, and imprisoning both of us. Geryon was imprisoned deep within Stygia, but my body was destroyed and I was trapped inside a blade in the mortal realm. You and your companions released Geryon, and then he arranged for you to come into ownership of my dagger. Your wonderful tithe of innocent souls has released me. Now I need to find a new body and find my way back to my beloved, then we can reclaim our rightful place as Lord and Lady of Stygia.”
Ramas considered for a moment,
“I could help you? Find a new body I mean, one where nobody is fighting you for control. If you help me for a while, I will help you find a new, better body. One more befitting your status. And I’ll help you get your revenge.”
Volux looked surprised, then a slow smile crept across her face. Grinning like a shark, she grabbed Ramas’s hand, causing burning pain to explode along his arm,
“You have a deal”
Ramas woke up to see Juliana standing over him, her face a mask of desperation and concern. Relief washed over her as her eyes locked with his,
“Are you ok?” she held out a hand to help him up. Ramas nodded and reached out with his right hand to grab hers and then snatched it back in shock. His right arm was jet black, looking almost polished smooth but oddly, no light reflected from the smooth surface. It seemed to absorb the light around it. He flexed his fingers, watching in confusion as they responded perfectly. He started to sit up, and then winced as a sharp pain exploded in his shoulder. He looked down to see the hilt of Lament still sticking out of his flesh,
“Oh sorry!” Juliana said quickly, then placed her foot on his chest and yanked the blade out. Ramas stifled a scream. But nearly instantaneously the fiery pain was extinguished by a wave of cold that seemed to wash up his arm. He looked down in surprise as tiny black tendrils seemed to knit the wound back together. A sibilant feminine voice whispered in the back of his mind,
“You’re welcome. Now remember our deal”
Ramas and Juliana got back to their feet, reassessing their position. The corpse of the unfortunate Verani official Ramas had killed still lay on the floor of the office. Juliana looked down at the body,
“We need to hide that. If anyone finds a body, they’ll relocate the meeting and everything will be for nothing.”
Ramas looked at the body, briefly considering if he could cut it into pieces to make it easier to hide. To his surprise, Ramas’s right arm reacted and the onyx flesh flowed like oily liquid into the form of a massive serrated blade. Ramas shook his head,
“Calm down - we’re not doing that.”
His arm returned to its normal shape. He could sense a faint disappointment from Volux. He was surprised how quickly he’d adjusted to this new state of affairs.
Ramas waiting outside in the hallway while Juliana quickly changed into the Adept’s robes. Hopefully that would avoid any further interactions as they continued. Together they propped the corpse up against the wall. Juliana used her transmutation magic to render the wall partially fluid, and they managed to hide the body inside the wall itself, leaving only a small bulge in the surface to indicate it’s resting place. As a hiding place, it should stand up to light scrutiny and hopefully should prevent the alarm being raised before the Grandmasters meeting.
Their tracks covered, and Juliana in a new disguise, together they continued their ascent through floors filled with libraries, administrative offices and practitioner rooms. None of the members of the Order they passed gave them a second glance thanks to Juliana’s stolen uniform, and they reached the 15th floor without incident, where the staircase ended in a large featureless octagonal chamber.
Ornate doors were set into each wall of the chamber. Regular explosions could be heard emanating from behind the far left door. Cautiously the pair decided to explore through some of the other doors first. Each door they checked opened into empty laboratories, each contains simple desks and furniture, and trays of various magical paraphernalia. Ramas looked over at the final door, the explosion door,
“Ok. I’ll go torture whoever is in there and get some directions”
Juliana balked,
“Hold on a second. Let me try something first. In here”
She led him into one of the empty rooms, eager to avoid further bloodshed. She climbed up on top of the desk, taking care not to knock any of the mysterious jars over as she did so. Then she reached up and placed her hand on the smooth stone of the ceiling and closed her eyes. She reached out with her stone sense, feeling through the material over her head. There it was, she knew it. She opened her eyes and smiled triumphantly at Ramas,
“There’s another room overhead. A big one. That’s got to be the meeting chamber”
“So how do we get there?”
“That’s easy”
She slipped her hands into the stone surface, and with a grunt of effort she pulled open a small hole, like a trapdoor between this room and the chamber above. Ramas chuckled in appreciation,
“Ok then. That’ll do it.”
He then reached out with his right hand. The smooth black flesh stretched up into the hole like a tendril of obsidian. His finger stretched and twisted like tentacles, curling around the lip of the hole; then he was whisked up into the council chamber.
Ramas quickly took in his surroundings with a trained eye. The room was a large octagonal chamber, brightly illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the enormous crystal skylight overhead. In the centre of the chamber, atop a square dias, stood an imposing octagonal table of black crystal.
Eight thrones were located around the table. Each appeared to be carved out of a different gemstone. Having confirmed there was no movement in the chamber, Ramas reached down through the hole and grabbed a hold of Juliana’s hand, pulling her up through the floor. The pair caught their breath for a moment, then fully explored the chamber. There didn’t appear to be any door into the room, but Juliana identified circles of arcane glyphs etched into the stone floor around the edge of the room, each emitting the faintest blue glow. Teleportation circles that the Grandmasters would likely use to teleport directly into the room. After a full sweep of the chamber, they agreed that the best place to hide the bombs would probably be inside the dias beneath the table. Confident they had learned all they could, they slipped back down through the hole in the floor, which Juliana resealed, and together they headed back to the safe house.
Next: Chapter 3-21 - The Council Meeting
Previous: Chapter 3-19 - The Order of the Shield
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