Adventure Log, Session 51 Onyxgleam Manor

Hannar Onyxgleam’s manor was a still, quiet complex of chambers carved into the side of a hill, lavishly appointed and decorated with very fine furniture and art pieces. They showed off Hannar’s wealth in a classy, understated way that demonstrated that she had hired the best craftspeople to apply the finishing touches to her domicile.

Unfortunately for Eykit, while the signs of wealth were all about him, none of those signs were easily portable. Hannar had chosen to put her money into making her manor look fabulously wealthy using building materials and exquisite workmanship, instead of jewelry or knickknacks. In a way, Hannar’s decorating style was austere, letting the walls, floors, and ceilings show how much money she’d sunk into the manor.

He glanced over at Almë and Ruby, who were exchanging whispers, likely something magic related. He could overhear them if he wished; his hearing was quite good. But it was likely they’d be using some kind of thaumatological word salad that he’d simply not understand, so he didn’t bother.

Somewhere in the manor was a hidden enemy, one that had, on multiple occasions attacked them. They weren’t sure what it was. It was like some flying insect or something that hit them with some kind of nerve-affecting toxin that caused dizziness and uncontrollable shaking.

And it was still out there, waiting. It hadn’t attacked in a little while, but then, the group had stayed away from the grand salon, which is where the attacks had happened. They suspected that it flew, although they had no evidence for that besides the fact that it had attacked them from above when they had been on the first floor, and then attacked them again when they had been on the balcony hallway.

But really, they had no idea what it was, or what it was capable of. [1]

Almë, after conferring quietly with Ruby, spoke up. “Guys, I suggest we go out and leave by the front door.”

Taid, Eykit, and Elitheris exchanged glances, hints of confusion on their faces. But they shrugged, and agreed. They had been on the second floor, so they took the spiral ramp down to the first floor, wary of any attack. They expected the hidden one to strike at them again.

But they made it to the front doors without incident. They exited.

“We want to flush this guy out instead of searching for him and getting attacked all the time,” Almë said, once they were on the front porch. “I want everyone except Ruby to stand off to the sides of the porch. Not near the doors.”


  Again, Taid, Eykit, and Elitheris exchanged glances, but followed his instructions. Once they had moved away, Almë peeked in through the doors, which he held barely open, just enough to see into the foyer and grand salon.


  “Ruby,” Almë said, “I’d like you to cast your explosive fireball spell. And get ready to throw it into the manor in a moment.”


  “All right,” she replied. She said a few strange words and sparks started swirling around her right hand. The sparks turned into flamelets, then, a moment later, a ball of fire roared in her gloved hand.


  Meanwhile, Almë was casting his own spell. He wanted to create a pollen cloud that would fill most of the manor, even though it would pretty much tap out the powerstones that he had built into his staff. It would be many days before they would recharge and be usable again. But he figured it would be worth it. His hands and fingers twisted, forming the conduits of power while he voiced the arcane syllables that would cause the mana to flow. As he finished the spell, he stuck the end of the staff through the mostly closed door, setting off the spell.


  A huge cloud of pollen filled the manor; he knew it likely filled the main floor, and most of the upper floor. He had left a narrow corridor of clear air extending from the doorway to the center of the cloud. He nodded to Ruby, and stepped out of the way of the door.


  Ruby threw her ball of fire straight into the manor, the ball of flame arcing into the Grand Salon, the light of its passage illuminating the walls in warm light. Had anyone looked, they would have seen a slight haziness in the air made visible by the firelight.


  It was a perfect throw; the fireball landed directly in the center of the fireplace and exploded with a crrummp!


  Almë looked confused. He’d been expecting a bigger bang. He’d noticed that pollen burned, much like sawdust. “Huh,” he said. “Maybe the cloud wasn’t dense enough.” He cast the Spell of Pollen Cloud again, with the same parameters, even down to the corridor of clear air. “There should be enough pollen in there now. Ruby, cast your fireball spell again.”


  She did, and again she threw the ball of fire into the Grand Salon. This time the explosion was much bigger, and much louder. The door, open only a crack big enough to get a hand in, slammed closed as the windows on the second floor exploded in a shower of glass fragments that rained down unto the stable roof, porch roof, and the front yard. [2]


  “That’s more like it!” Almë said.


  “What was that?” Taid asked, looking at the sparkling glass that lay scattered on the stable roof.


  “Basically a dust explosion, like that of a grain silo. Hopefully, it’s flushed out anything that was hiding in there.”


  “Would’ve flushed me out,” Eykit said, looking up at the shattered windows. Smoke still drifted lazily out of them.


  Almë opened the door and peeked in. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness within, but there was enough light to see that the interior was filled with smoke, and the fireplace masonry was covered in s huge smudge of soot. Furniture was displaced, charred, and smoking, the expensive upholstery ruined. Small flames licked here and there on them. Besides the faint sounds of little fires, the manor was silent. Smoke oozed out of the space between the doors.


  He waved to the rest of them to follow, and he slipped inside the doors, moving as quietly as he could. He wasn’t trying to be stealthy; he was simply trying to move quietly enough not to mask any other sounds that he might hear from inside the manor.


  Not all of the pollen had burned, and they could feel its effects on them: the urge to sneeze, itching eyes, a ticklish throat. The urges were there, but not at the full level that an unadulterated Spell of Pollen Cloud was able to provide.


  They hadn’t gone more than a few steps into the foyer when they realized that they were having trouble breathing. The smoke wasn’t too bad; most of the structure was stone, so the only real source of the smoke was the upholstered furniture and the wood they were made of. They could see overturned furniture in the Grand Salon, covered in little flamelets that died out as they watched.


  Within a few more seconds, and they were panting, trying to breathe. The explosion had used up the oxygen, and it was taking a while for the outside air to mix with the carbon dioxide-heavy indoor air.


  “We’ve gotta get out of here,” Elitheris said, “at least for a short while.”


  There were nods from the others in the group. “And,” she continued, “we should probably leave the front doors wide open.” Again, there were nods, as everyone filed back out into the front yard.


  While waiting for the bad air in the manor to clear, they used the time to have a meal. It was traveler’s rations, and cold, but it filled their bellies. Elitheris and Mister Wiggles stood by the open door, just in case they heard someone inside coughing or otherwise reacting to what had just happened.


  “At least I have an opportunity to get at this damned itch,” Taid said, loosening the buckles on the side of his cuirass. “Ah,” he sighed, scratching his back, “finally. That damned itch was driving me crazy. We still don’t know who was casting all those spells on us.”


  “It was all body spells, right?” Almë asked. “And the spell of levitation, I suppose. That’s why we can assume it was Lennerd. We know he had those kinds of spells.”


  “So we can assume he’s in the house somewhere,” Taid replied.


  Almë frowned. “There was something else, though. Itch and Spasm we saw, but there was something else that someone got hit by.”


  “I think it was me,” Elitheris called from where she was at the doorway. “Something pricked me, and Wigs. Like a dart or needle, with a toxin on it.” Whatever the toxin had been, both Elitheris and Mister Wiggles seemed to have recovered from it. She called to Taid, “How long do you estimate it will take for the air to become breathable in there?”


  Taid thought about it. “Should be safe in say, twenty minutes. That should give plenty of time for the air to mix.”


  They waited it out. They still listened for any noises from inside the structure, but heard none.


  They re-entered the manor, Elitheris and Mister Wiggles in front, Eykit in the rear. Elitheris wanted to know what was down the ramp off past the bar; they hadn’t really gone that way yet, and that meant that there was potentially an entire level they hadn’t even seen yet.


  They went down the ramp. It opened up into a room, apparently a storeroom or root cellar. Four doors, placed on the other three walls, led further into the lower level; cabinets took up the space between the doors. It was dark; no light from the windows above reached here. Ruby pulled out her glowing coin, and bright light and dark shadows sprung into being, the shadows flicking and shifting as her companions moved about. Taid pulled out his short sword, which also still glowed brightly from the Continual Light spell cast upon it. Now the dark, confusing shadows were mitigated by the second light source.


  Elitheris glanced at the Goblin with a grin. “Eykit, you want first dibs at what’s in the cabinet?”


  “Sure!” Eykit replied. None of cabinets had locks on them; Eykit knew that didn’t bode well for high valued items. But this was a noble’s manor, and their idea of “high value” was different than that of commoners. He opened the first cabinet. He was disappointed to see only bins and glass jars of the type to hold pickled and canned foodstuffs. On the lowest shelf was a pair of burlap bags, one filled with flour, the other with oats.


  Taid looked over Eykit’s shoulder into the cabinet. “I’ll take this, and this,” he said, grabbing a jar of pickled vegetables, and a jar of canned peaches. “Snacking food.”


  They checked the other cabinets. One had more jars of foodstuffs, another had pots, pans, and cooking tools like spatulas, tongs, and assorted other cooking equipment. Another had rope, twine, and some basic carpentry tools, likely used for minor repairs that didn’t require artisans from town that were hours away, at best. Yet another was filled with table linens and extra place settings.


  Elitheris grabbed a coil of rope and a spool of twine. By her estimation, the rope was twenty meters long, and the twine much, much longer than that, and seemed to be made of hemp fibers. Ruby, of course, took a couple of jars of canned vegetables. Eykit was more focused on the silverware. It was heavy, and bulky, but he figured each decorated piece was worth twenty marks, so he grabbed a handful of assorted knives, spoons, and forks, and shoved it in his pack.


  Elitheris moved to the door on the left, pulling out one of the glowing orbs that she had. While Taid and Ruby had bright light sources, they were both behind her, and she shaded the doorway. The orb that glowed with soft moonlight mitigated that deep shadow a bit. She opened the door, her enchanted rondel dagger ready.


  In the room were three huge cisterns, marked in Khuzdul. “They say they are water tanks,” Taid said helpfully. “Likely collected from rain water or a spring.” Between the tanks pipes could be seen, connecting the tanks together before disappearing into the stone-tiled wall. Next to one of the tanks was what appeared to be a pump with a hand crank.


  “Makes sense,” Elitheris replied. They’d seen a privy with a sink on the floor above, as well as the sink at the bar. The water had to have come from somewhere. She cocked her head, thinking. The water tanks were below the sinks; it would have made more sense to have them in an upper floor, so gravity would do the work of providing water pressure. She shrugged. Dwarves had figured out how to get water (and air, and sewage) to where in their undercities they needed to go long ago.


  There was a cabinet as well, but it just held what appeared to be plumbing parts and tools.


  Then they opened the next door in line. It was a laundry room, complete with vats and a cistern sitting on top of a furnace. There were also a trio of wringers and a series of clotheslines and a table for folding.


  They opened the third door. It was a storage room, with shelving units all along the walls, with a rather haphazard pile of furniture in the middle of the room. On the shelves were mostly home goods of various kinds, along with several different styles of place settings. The place settings were familiar; Eykit recognized that the patterns were the same ones in the shop they had spent so much time in.


  The fourth door led to a room with a furnace, along with a stack of firewood and a large pile of coal. Ducting led into the ceiling, likely somehow leading to the rooms on the upper floors. The cabinet in the room was filled with tools, both for repair and some shovels.


  They went back up the ramp to the main floor. The lower floor was simply a utility space. With the exception of some canned goods and a handful of silverware, it had basically been a waste of time. But they had to be sure nothing was waiting for them down there.


  Elitheris opened the door next to the ramp. It led to a kitchen. There was a central large butcher block table, with drawers and cabinets beneath it. Many of the cooking utensils and pots and pans were located there. There was also a large wood fired oven, and a hearth for roasting. A large kettle hung from a sturdy hook in the fireplace. There were also three sets of cabinets with countertops around the edges of the room. There was also a sink, complete with plumbed water. Nearby was a small room used for wood fuel storage.


  There was also a large pantry. The room had floor to ceiling shelving all around the room, with a central area for barrel storage of various foodstuffs, clearly labeled in Imperial text: salted meat, pickled vegetables, vinegar, wine, oil, etc. There was some “fresh” vegetables in some of the bins, but they all looked like they’d been there for over an eightday.


  Elitheris found some large sacks full of nuts and seeds, and transferred some handfuls of them into the side pockets of her backpack. “You never know…” she said to herself. Ruby took a bunch of nuts as well. She even found a sack of sugar-glazed walnuts, and took the entire half kilogram bag of them.


  Elitheris thought that maybe there was a doorway between the stables and the pantry, but she didn’t find anything like that. It would have made sense for supplies to have been brought in via a servant’s entrance, but there didn’t seem to be one. Apparently, all of the supplies came in through the front door. She thought it was tacky.


  Taid, meanwhile, didn’t care about foodstuffs. He was more worried about wherever Lennerd was. He figured that the necromancer was around here somewhere, hiding in the dark, levitating in some out of the way corner. Likely licking his wounds. Until he saw that damned guy’s body, he was going to assume he was alive, and looking to attack them. He moved into the Grand Salon, checking the upper portions of the room for any life or movement. He didn’t see anything or anyone. He frowned in frustration. Where is that bastard? he thought.


  He looked around the large room. The furniture was scorched, the carved wood damaged and the embroidered upholstery utterly ruined. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air. The paint on the walls was bubbled and smeared with soot. Light still filtered in through the broken windows. But nothing moved in the room, and there didn’t seem to be any odd shadows or figures in the room.


  Then he got to work looking for secret doors or panels along the walls. He noted with some amusement that the game board, which had been in the middle of a game, had had all of the pieces scattered around the room by the explosive blast. Some of the pieces were broken. He grinned; it gave him a jolt of perverse pleasure to have Lennerd’s game disrupted.


  Elitheris, Eykit, Almë, and Ruby kept together, and checked the casual dining area, just to be complete. They moved past Taid, heading towards the side of the manor with the library, a room they’d seen, and done a cursory check, but that was when they had been interrupted by the attack of Gog and Magog, and Boskone. Almë and Ruby peeled off to help Taid search for hidden things. Eykit checked the bar.


  The Elven woman opened the door to the privy, immediately noticing the smell—or lack thereof. It was a bit of a surprise, usually the privies she’d had to use in non-Elven areas had an unpleasant odor. This one didn’t. Its air smelled the same as the other rooms, with perhaps a bit less smoke. She moved over to the sink, to wash her hands. Since there is a sink here with a supply of water, why not? she thought. I’ll use Hannar’s soap! She owes us in any case.


  She noticed a silver object mounted on the toilet bench. It was a little windmill. And it was enchanted. She spun the sails, and they rotated around for a bit, then stopped. She touched it, willing the magic to work. She felt a bit of strength leave her, just as if she’d cast a minor spell. The room no longer smelled smoky. It was an air freshener.


  She washed her hands, noticing that there was a hot tap and a cold tap. The water, however, was only tepid. Ah, she thought, the water heater. There had been no fire under it, and it was likely that there hadn’t been for over an eightday. The water had kept only residual heat.


  Taid appreciated the help. He’d been thinking he’d be there searching, likely finding nothing, for a half hour, at least. The others also looking sped that time up considerably.


  Eykit found some really good bottles of whiskey; he figured they’d fetch fifty or sixty marks apiece, at least. He could probably figure out a way to sell them to the right people for two or three times that much. He would just have to provide a good story to go along with them….


  He grabbed one of the bottles, sliding it into his pack. Maybe he’d come back later for the others, since he figured that the one he’d taken wouldn’t last long enough to make it back to town. His eyes scanned the supply of bottles ranged on the shelves. He recognized some of them, although not many. The ones he recognized were absolutely top shelf, though, and he figured the ones he didn’t recognize were even more so. Oh, how I wish I had a cart! he thought. But this stuff is just too heavy to carry, damn it.


  Mister Wiggles started sniffing and growling uncertainly. Elitheris looked around, trying to figure out what it was that Wigs was getting upset about. She had her glowing orb in one hand, her Elven rondel in the other. “Hey!” she called to her companions. “Stop dinking around. Mister Wiggles has found something! Maybe. Can I get some assistance please?”


  The others immediately stopped their tapping, pushing, and shifting, and hurried towards Elitheris and her dog. Norolind picked up on something too as they neared their Elven companion, and he started growling as well.


  “What is it?” Almë whispered.


  “Not sure,” Elitheris replied softly. “The dogs are worried, so I’m worried.”


  “Makes sense.” Almë tensed up, his hands getting a better grip on his staff.


  After a few moments of nothing happening, Elitheris moved towards the nearest door down the hallway. She opened the door onto a large bedroom, with a very high vaulted ceiling. The walls were painted to look like a forest, but when Elitheris took a step into the room, she noticed that the light from her orb showed that it wasn’t paint on the walls. It was inlaid stone. The walls were a mosaic, made of precious and semiprecious stones, carefully laid to look like a forest with a star-filled sky between their branches. Even through her leather gloves, Elitheris could feel that the stones also had texture: the “bark” was rough, the stones making the “leaves” were smooth, and the stones between the details almost completely flat. Even blind, given enough time, she’d be able to “see” what the walls depicted, just from running her hands over it.


  The others entered the room, and immediately the colors leapt out once the brighter light sources illuminated the room. It was gorgeous. Trees, bushes, ground cover, grasses, wildflowers, all picked out in tiny pieces of stone. There were even animals depicted, here and there, peeking out from around tree trunks, or hiding under bushes, or sitting on tree branches.


  There was a large double bed against the wall opposite the doorway. And there were five single beds arranged around the walls of the room. They all had expensive bedspreads, made of treesilk. And now that there was enough light, it was obvious to them that the beds were all carven with the same designs. They were a matching set of furniture.


  “Are those for children?” Elitheris asked.


  “Husbands,” Taid said. “Kids usually sleep in a different room.”


  “Ah, right. Polyandry. Yeah, I knew that.”


  When they got closer to the heads of the beds, they could see that the sheets were actual silk, rather than the treesilk of the bedspreads. Delicate embroidery laced the edge of the sheet. All of the bed linens matched as well.


  Eykit gazed at the furniture. He’d never seen anything like it before, and must have cost ten times the amount of the best furniture he’d seen. “Where’s a cart when you need one?” he said aloud, to no one. He figured that each bed was worth upwards of 14,000 marks, and the bed linens worth another four thousand. 18,000 marks, per bed. And there were six of them, all a matching set. He figured that Hannar/Kallia must have spent 120,000 marks for the lot of them. At least. He couldn’t calculate the walls; he had nothing to compare them to. All he knew was that there had been some very skilled artisans working on it, for quite some time. The wealth around him boggled his mind. And it was all too large to shove in his pockets!


  Almë couldn’t help but run his hands all over the walls. The Dwarven artisan (and in his mind it had to have been a Dwarf) had doe a beautiful job of depicting a forest. Whoever had designed the mosaic had known his plants. Almë kept trying to find fault with the depictions of the plants, but the leaf shapes, branching patterns, and flower colors were all very accurate. He could tell what each of the plants were. It was amazing, a melding of Elven subject matter with Dwarven aesthetics. It was enthralling.


  They checked the end tables, which had personal items in them. Elitheris found a book, in Khuzdûl, with the subtitle in Imperial saying that it was a tale of Warren Steelbreaker. She turned to ask Taid, but he was lying on the double bed.


  Taid had never laid on a better mattress. There were no lumps, no clusters of padding that bunched up beneath the sheet. Even through his cuirass, he could tell it was a quality mattress.


  “Taid,” Elitheris asked, “who’s Warren Steelbreaker?”


  “Some Dwarven hero from about a millennium ago.” Taid laid on the mattress, eyes closed, wishing he was in a position to take off his armor and truly enjoy the bed. Alas, they were in enemy territory, and removing his armor wasn’t an option. He really didn’t want to get up. A nap was sounding really, really nice right at the moment. “We’re not selling this place. We’re just taking it over. Manor North or Manor West or whatever.”


  “It is a nicer manor than the one by Port Karn,” Elitheris said, looking again at the stone-inlaid walls.


  “And it doesn’t need that much rebuilding,” Eykit added. “Just cleaning up some soot, and replacing some furniture.”


  Elitheris still held the book. “Anything else about this Steelbreaker guy?”


  “I don’t know,” Taid replied. “Fought some tunnel worm or something.”


  She flipped through the pages of the book. The writing was in Khuzdûl runes, although there were a few woodcuts. One picture showed an armored Dwarf standing with spear and axe, and another with him in combat against a huge maw filled with teeth, presumably the front end of the tunnel worm. It was bigger than a house. There was a folded scrap of paper used as a bookmark.


  The end tables didn’t seem to have very many things in them. In fact, the whole place felt almost more like an inn than an actual house, as if it wasn’t their main abode. It seemed to be a place that the owners visited, rather than lived in.


  Elitheris put the book onto the nearest table. Something about it caught Taid’s eye, and he reached for it, holding it up in front of him. It wasn’t the book he was looking at though; it was the bookmark. He’d noticed lettering on it. He pulled it out, not caring if the owner lost their place. He unfolded it. It was written in Imperial.


  “…oticed odd behaviors: mainly a certain alertness. It might just be my imagination, but it seemed to be listening to something. I could never tell what it was, and I never…. …and the methodology is complicated. It takes a lot of learning and stu…. …ards are enough? How many can be implanted? Is there even a limi…. …n’t call up what you can’t put down….”


  “Well, shit,” Elitheris said.


  “‘—ards’ are going to be ‘shards’,” Eykit said.


  “Can I see the page?” Elitheris asked. Taid handed it to her, and she read it for herself. “Don’t call up what you can’t put down,” Elitheris added. “That sounds familiar. I think I’ve heard that before.”


  “Yeah, basically, whatever you’re experimenting on, make sure you can control it.”


  “So one of her ‘pets’ has a certain alertness?”


  “It could have been one of the ones we killed,” Taid said, reluctantly levering himself off of the so-very-comfortable bed.


  “Could have been.” She handed the torn page back to Taid. “So, what’s in the next room?”


  She opened the door. It was the master bathroom. There were a pair of privies, with another silver windmill between them, and two oval bath tubs. There was a cistern with a furnace beneath it, with some cold ashes in it and a small pile of firewood next to it. On the wall opposite the bath tubs were countertops with a pair of plumbed sinks. In the center of the room was a padded bench.


  “We should light that furnace,” Taid said. “Heat up some water. Then, when we are done with all this shenanigans, I can take a nice bath.”


  “I can light it for you,” Ruby offered. She got some wood from the pile, shaved off a pile of wood shavings and shoved them between the pieces of wood. A moment later and a flameout appeared at her fingertip, which she applied to the shavings. Another moment, and the fire was lit.


  “Oh, that’ll be great. I’m going to need to wash Lennerd’s blood off of me later.” He chuckled. “Maybe we should get the laundry up and going, and just do all of our laundry and stuff before we leave.”


  Elitheris grinned. “Sounds fantastic.” She moved to the double doors opposite the door they entered from, and opened them, knife ready. The walk-in closet was empty of foes. Along all the walls were shelves and places to hang clothing. In the center was a counter with cabinets beneath it, and there were two padded benches, one on either end of the cabinet.


  “Can we just move in here?” Elitheris asked. It wasn’t Elven in style, but she’d adapt. It had all the amenities.


  The room was full of clothing. There were several people’s worth of Dwarf-sized clothing in there, and the largest section was filled with feminine clothing. The clothing was high end, high status clothing, and all decorated and appropriate for nobility.


  The dogs had stopped their growling when they’d come into the bedroom. Now both of them were snuffling at the clothing. Mister Wiggles found a shoe he seemed to like, and started chewing on it.


  Ruby started looking through the dresses, although her body proportions were very different than a Dwarven woman’s. Dwarves were stocky, and built wide. There was little chance any of the dresses would fit, at least not without some major tailoring first.


  She could probably take an overcoat, and get it tailored to fit her, but she passed as it would be too much trouble to lug it around with her. Maybe later, after Lennerd was taken care of, she would come back and select a few items.


  Taid, too, looked through the clothing; it was likely there were many items that would fit him, probably with only minimal tailoring. Like Ruby, he figured he could come back when their work was done here. He did mentally mark some of the shirts and pants as items he wouldn’t mind having in his own wardrobe.


  The dogs had stopped growling; Mister Wiggles was sniffing at the clothing, mostly the clothing with fur trim. Norolind stayed by Ruby’s side, sniffing the clothing when he got near some. Ruby noticed with a slight grin that his jowls left smears of dog slobber on some of the very expensive and valuable clothing.


  Elitheris started tapping on walls, pressing on the panels behind the hanging clothing, and checking the drawers for false bottoms. She didn’t find any, much to her chagrin. She had been hoping to find a secret door or compartment. Sighing in disappointment, she desultorily rifled through the pockets of the feminine clothing.


  Eykit was doing the same, if for different reasons. He was looking for loot. Pocket change, preferably, but jewelry would be just fine, too. He didn’t find any, which surprised him; in the houses of many of the rich people he’d robbed, their jewelry was usually stashed in the dressing room, since jewelry was fashion. When people dressed, they needed to accessorize, and they often did so without having to move back and forth from room to room. Everything they needed was usually right there.


  But in this case, that wasn’t true. He found no jewelry boxes or cases at all. Either this Hannar lady didn’t wear jewelry, or she didn’t use this place enough to keep a separate stash of jewelry here. Perhaps she carried a selection of things from wherever else she lived. In disgust, he kicked at one of the benches, tipping it over and gaining a sore toe in the process.


  “Hey, guys?” Elitheris said. “I think I may have found something.” She held up a folded letter that she had found in what must have been Hannar Onyxgleam’s most expensive coat. It had fur trim and extensive embroidery, suitable for the most exclusive and royal functions.


  She unfolded it, and read it aloud:


  Ser Hannar Onyxgleam,


  Work on your northeastern manor proceeds apace. The first few chambers have been excavated, and we should complete more excavation at a rate of another chamber every few days. Per your instructions, we are leaving the walls unfinished, as you have expressed a desire to have a different team do the finish work. We should be done with our portion of the construction work in two eightdays.


  The portico is mostly complete, again, we’ve left the finish work for your finish work team. But the basic bones are done. I must say, the view from your “courtyard” is fabulous, although I still say it’s more of a shelf, rather than a courtyard. But, you’re the boss, so it’s a courtyard. I was there early (late?) enough to see the sunrise. Beautiful.


  I know you like your privacy, but you could have saved a lot of transportation costs by having the manor built closer to Dwarfchat. Half the price of the excavation is tied up in transport costs; it might have been cheaper to build the trail into a road that could support wagons. I’ve had to hire several porters and mules just to pack in the supplies to the work site. Ah, sorry. Your money, your rules! I guess I’m just tired and not looking forward to a day’s hike to get home.


  In any case, we’ve accommodated your wishes to not publicize the construction, realizing that you want to spring it upon your husbands as a surprise. I imagine that they will be thrilled when they see it! The pay bonus doesn’t hurt, and makes dealing with the bureaucracy a bit easier.


  Yours truly, Barak Thunderbeard, Supervisor Thunderbeard Construction Company


  (In a scrawled note in a different, feminine hand: “Make sure to get a list of employees, including all of the new porters, so I can send them my personalized reward for their service”


  “Finally! A new torture target!” Almë exclaimed. “What’s this guy’s name?”


  “Barak Thunderbeard,” Eykit answered.


  “Nice. Let’s go back to town and find this guy.”


  “First of all, “courtyard”?” Elitheris asked.


  “Yeah, yeah. But it hints towards the mansion. The sunrise is in the east, towards Port Karn. It’s not really a courtyard; she just calls it that, but it isn’t really one. So it’s from a balcony. It fits the information we got from that first letter we found.”


  “So, a northeastern manor?” Taid asked. “So where are we in relation to Dwarfchat right now?”


  “Northwest,” Elitheris stated.


  “Yeah,” Almë said, almost to himself. “This is talking about a second manor. That’s the actual Kallia manor, and this guy built it.”


  Taid said, “So, we have a name to get some info from.”


  “Well, I think we’ve done what we can in this place,” Elitheris said.


  “Wait a minute. I think we should finish up here first, don’t you think?” Taid said. “There is still something in here with us, somewhere. Someone or something attacked you, and put an Itch on my back.”


  “But we have literally hunted through the whole building,” Elitheris countered, “and unless we are going to go around checking every surface for secret panels…which I suppose we can do....” Her voice trailed off, uncertainly. She didn’t look forward to having to check every centimeter of the manor tediously looking for secret things.


  Eykit had drifted back into the bathroom area. He noticed a small perforated tile on the floor. With the tip of his knife, he levered it up; it wasn’t mortared down like the rest of the floor tiles. It lead to a metal duct, similar in size to the ductwork they’d seen on the furnace in the basement level. Each room likely had a similar duct, for ventilation and heating purposes. Being buried in a mountain, he figured it must be pretty easy keeping it warm. He put his ear near the duct, trying to see if he could hear anything in any of the other rooms.


  Taid was still talking. “I’m hesitant to leave just yet. I mean, there seems to still be something here. I don’t want it behind us. I want it dealt with.”


  Almë nodded. “I say we walk through the rooms and search for that thing. The chances of him being killed by the explosion is, unfortunately, not likely. We haven’t found a body. And if it is dead, and still invisible, maybe we’ll stumble on it. Then we’ll know.”


  Elitheris hesitated, but agreed. “We haven’t experienced any attacks since we’ve been back inside.” She looked around at her companions. “Has anyone experienced any attacks? Itches?” She paused for a moment. “As I thought, no one’s been attacked. The only thing that’s happened is that Mister Wiggles triggered on something.”


  “The pollen was created by magic,” Almë said. “It’s created within the area of the spell; it’s not flowing from my fingertips. So if there are any secret passages within the effect of the spell, they are full of pollen, even if the flames didn’t make it in there. The flames would use up the air, though, so maybe he was hiding, and got knocked out by the air going bad.”


  It was his turn to look around at his companions. “I think we should take our chances and spend the time to search the rooms to see if there are any hidden compartments.”


  “Hidden compartments might also explain the distinct lack of any jewelry or money,” Eykit said.


  “We don’t even need to find the opening,” Almë continued. “We just need to find where it is. I can cast the Spell of Earth Shaping to get into it. We just need to find the right wall.”


  Elitheris nodded. “I agree with that. I mean, we’re fucking here, right? Let’s just get this done.”


  They moved out of the master suite. There was another room they hadn’t been into yet. Taid opened the door. It was a bedroom, with five Dwarf-sized beds in it. Lavishly appointed, the floor and upper half of the walls were a white marble, while the lower parts of the walls were a malachite tile.


  They filed into the room, spreading out and checking to see if any of the mortar lines between the tiles looked odd, or if they could hear any hollow sounds from behind the tiles.


  “Barracks for the guards?” Almë asked.


  Taid shook his head and said, “This is likely where the other five husbands slept when Hannar was wanting some privacy with one husband.” The beds were just as fine as the ones in the master suite. He doubted Hannar would spring for such nice beads for guards.


  “What, she doesn’t entertain all her husbands at once?” Eykit said, grinning slyly.


  Taid tilted his head. “No, imp. Although I suppose some marriage groups might do that, most don’t. Orgies aren’t really our thing. We are a very private people. Generally.”


  They went from room to room, searching for hidden compartments or passages. Something. There had to be something here, somewhere. They covered most of the rooms around the periphery of the manor, on the assumption that the interior walls were fairly thin; by their estimation, they were only about thirty centimeters thick. No room for any secret passages.


  In the privy, they found a fairly well concealed panel. Opening, they found pipes; it was simply access to the Dwarf pipes that plumbed the structure. Taid nodded. This was fairly typical of Dwarven construction; Dwarf pipes would occasionally spring leaks and need to be fixed, and that required access to the pipes.


  They moved to the tiny bar area. They found an access panel for the plumbing of the sink there, too. As they were closing it, however, they heard a faint scratching noise.


  “Upstairs?” Elitheris asked.


  Almë nodded, as did a couple of the others. “Upstairs it is.” They moved up the spiral ramp. At the top of the ramp, they split up. Ruby, Norolind, and Almë went to the right, to explore the guest wing. Elitheris, Mister Wiggles, Taid, and Eykit went to the left, to explore the servants’ wing.


  Ruby wasn’t sure splitting up was a good idea, but Almë convinced her that if someone had trouble, the rest could come running and be there fairly quickly. She remembered how long it took her to rejoin the group when she’d gone up the ramp on her own, and she’d felt pretty useless and unable to help. She had been hoping that wouldn’t happen again.


  But then, her cynical, practical side came to the fore, as Central had trained her. Smaller groups might make it easier to flush out the enemy. It was here somewhere, maybe smaller, apparently weaker groups might make it come out of its hiding place.


  Elitheris let Taid lead. He had his short sword out, filling the area with bright light so everyone could see. The beginning of the hallway, near the balcony of the grand salon, was lit by the now broken windows. A wind stirred little bits of debris, leaves, and pine needles across the stone tiled floor in little whorls. The far end of the hallway would have been dim, but for the light of Taid’s spelled sword.


  They went door to door, checking each room, tapping on the outside walls. The rooms on the left hand side were modestly furnished, suitable for the servants. The rooms on the right were furnished better, and seemed appropriate for guests of lesser, but still honored station. Those rooms were unlikely to have any secret passages, being on the inside of the construction area; there would be no room for them, except, perhaps, in the ceiling. But they didn’t find anything there.


  Almë opened the next door. It was another guest bedroom, empty but ready for guests like all of the others. He walked in, his eyes scanning the room, taking in the made bed, the side tables, the armoire, and the desk and chair. It was likely that only the wall across from the doorway would have any secret rooms, since there were rooms on either side of the guest room.


  Norolind stopped moving, crouching slightly, and started growling. He seemed fixated on a spot up the corridor, in the direction of the game room. His ears were back, his body tense. Then he yelped, jumping sideways a half step in reaction to something.


  Almë spun, seeing Norolind growling in the hallway. “Kakaw!” Almë shouted, giving the long used “birdcall” for “oh shit something is happening!” It had started as a bad joke, but no one was laughing now.


  Down at the other end of the corridor, on the other side of the manor, Elitheris, Eykit, and Taid all heard Almë’s call to action. They stopped what they were doing, glanced at each other, and started running back towards their friends.


  Ruby’s eyes darted around the hallway, her staff held in a guard position. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Norolind trembling.


  Almë thought he heard some shuffling farther up the hallway, but he couldn’t be sure. He moved back to the doorway, looking up the hall and trying to see what it was that had the dog spooked.


  Norolind was still growling, swinging his huge head from side to side as if trying to find something. The hallway appeared empty. No one thought that it was.


  Almë saw Ruby in a half crouch, here staff defensively held in front of her. He stepped in front of her, his own staff ready to guard his body. If something were to attack from up the hallway, he was hoping his body would be in the way of the attack.


  Almë started to edge forward, step by step.


  Ruby whispered, “Almé! Wait! We don’t know what’s going on there, and the others are on their way!”


  Almë glanced back, hesitated for a moment, and whispered back, “I got this.” He then took another step down the hallway. Whatever it was, he was sure he could handle it.


  Ruby was miffed. “Fuck you, Almë,” she muttered under her breath. Don’t these people know how to take orders? she thought. Damned flighty Elves!


  Something struck the back of her head, and she stumbled forward, a bit off balance. The Elven silversilk balaclava she wore did its job though, and she didn’t feel any pain. She spun about, ready to face her attacker, but there was nothing there. Whatever had hit her, was small, like a tiny throwing dagger or something. But if it had been a dagger, it was invisible too.


  Almë caught Ruby’s stumble out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to look at her. She was rubbing the back of her head, looking back from whence she had come. He frowned, then saw her grab her glowing coin and hold it up above her head, letting the light shine in all directions.


  Norolind spun a quarter turn, taking a step back and putting the wall at his back. His head turned from side to side. He barked: a deep woof that seemed louder than normal in the confined space of the hallway. His body was still trembling, almost as if he was having trouble supporting his own weight.


  Almë’s eyes flicked this way and that, trying to cover both ends of the hallway as best he could. He hadn’t noticed anything pass him; whatever had happened, it had come from behind them.


  “Something hit me from behind,” Ruby explained. “It was something sharp.” She was starting to think that whatever hit her had already hit Nori, who was showing symptoms similar to those that Mister Wiggles and Elitheris had exhibited. “I think it was that poisonous thing.”


  Almë saw a door near the end of the hall open. He tapped Ruby on the shoulder, and silently pointed at the door.


  Elitheris and her group rounded the first corner. They didn’t see anything moving in the Grand Salon or the hallway. Almë, Ruby, and Norolind were too far past the corner for them to be seen. Mister Wiggles was in the lead, bounding down the hallway towards his “big brother”. He was going to get there much faster than the slower two-legs.


  Ruby contemplated moving towards the open door, and even took a step in that direction, but she thought better of it.


  Almë spun about, looking back up the hallway, his back to Ruby. His pack was slowing him down, so he removed it. It wasn’t as simple as just letting it fall from his shoulders; his armor, with its buckles, actually gave a bit of resistance as the straps got hung up on the thick gambeson.


  Norolind crouched, hackles raised, his head swiveling back and forth, his ears up and turning as well, trying to figure out where the enemy was. It was around somewhere. He growled in frustration and warning. He was mostly looking down the hallway in the direction in which they’d come, but still didn’t seem to find what he was looking for.


  Ruby grabbed his collar with one hand, loosely. He knew she was “restraining” him, but it wouldn’t actually stop him from leaping to the attack if he decided to do that. There was no way she could stop 80kg of mastiff from doing what he wanted. She stood slightly in front of him, facing the corner of the hallway. She could hear the running footsteps of several people approaching. Her friends were getting closer. Whatever was there was about to become sandwiched between her and Nori, and her friends.


  Taid and Eykit both shrugged off their packs, leaving them in the hallway near the Grand Salon. Less encumbered now, they were able to sprint forward.


  Ruby glanced into the nearest room, one that they had already searched. As they’d gone from room to room, they’d lit the oil lamps to provide some illumination besides their glowing objects.


  She still didn’t see anything. She was getting very frustrated; there was an enemy around, and it didn’t even have the common decency to be open and upfront about it. It was simply rude. “Room looks clear!” she said, loudly enough for Almë to hear.


  Mister Wiggles, barking, ran around the corner up ahead of them.


  Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Mister Wiggles come around the corner, then yelp and jerk to the side, sliding on the smooth marble floor tiles.


  Almë dropped his pack on the floor. Then he started walking towards the end of the hallway, checking on the doors as he went, looking for any door that hadn’t fully latched.


  Mister Wiggles spun about, barking, facing the corner of the hallway. Norolind also turned to face in that direction, growling, and starting to shift his weight forward, as if tensing to leap. He let out a few barks in response to the smaller dog.


  Ruby glanced around from side to side, checking doorways to see if any of the doors had opened when she hadn’t been looking. It was still closed.


  Taid charged forward, his halberd down and ready. He sincerely hoped that Ruby or Almë didn’t just pop around the corner as a surprise. In his left hand he also held the glowing short sword, but he could drop that in an instant if he needed to wield Maggie properly. He wasn’t far from the corner of the hallway.


  Elitheris and Eykit were following, although the powerful Dwarf outpaced them, despite his short legs.


  Taid started going around the corner. He noticed both the dogs were staring in the direction of the corner of the hallway. What, he thought, are they looking at? Shit! It’s behind me!


  Taid spun his halberd towards the corner as he slid to a stop. Both dogs were barking now, and Norolind was starting to pull harder on his collar. Ruby released him, and he bounded forward, snarling. Mister Wiggles followed.


  Ruby started after the dogs. She didn’t see anything in the corner, but she trusted the dogs. She always had, and Nori was after something. Her eyes flicked back and forth, trying to see whatever it is that was there. Or, more specifically, evidence that there was something there—anything that would let her know where the thing was. Several things flashed through her mind: pollen, smoke, something that would react to something invisible moving through it. Water!


  She scrambled for her canteen. Hopefully, she could fling it all over the invisible creature and she’d see it.


  “Eykit!” Taid shouted. “Guard the stairs!” He was focused on the corner, where the two dogs were focused. Something was there. He’d noticed that Nori’ sight line was level with his head; he wasn’t looking upward, as if towards a flying enemy. Taid stepped forward, towards the corner, thrusting his halberd out in front of him, striking at his unseen foe. The top spike encountered only air.


  Eykit heard something move in the corner. It was faint, but audible. Whatever it was had moved out of the way of Maggie’s attack.


  Norolind bounded the few steps it took him to reach the corner, and snarling, he slammed into something. The two beings, one dog, and one invisible, crashed into the privy door, rattling it in its frame. It held; it was good, solid Dwarven construction.


  Ruby had her canteen out and open, and seeing her beloved pet slam into something, she flicked the canteen, sending a gout of water at them. Some hit Nori, who didn’t seem to notice, most hit the wall behind Nori and his unseen foe, but some splashed off of whatever it was that she couldn’t see. It didn’t give her much information, but it did allow her to get an impression that it wasn’t much bigger than Norolind was tall, and it seemed that Norolind out-massed it, whatever it was.


  Taid, Eykit, and Elitheris also saw the splash, so they all had a vague idea where the thing was. Almë, still up the hallway, was too far away, and was busy checking doors anyway.


  “Good boy!” Ruby shouted. “Get him!”


  As she watched, three claw marks appeared raking up his hind leg. The hound didn’t yelp, but he did start whimpering. His leg wavered, then collapsed under him, his other legs scrabbling for balance. Blood flowed down his leg, forming a puddle his paw slipped in. HIs blood was bright red against the white marble tiles.


  He’d also been wounded on his other side: another set of claw marks, not as deep as the ones on his leg, but still significant. Blood only oozed from those; the lines across his ribs didn’t seem nearly as deep as the gashes in his leg.


  Eykit charged forward, knives ready, the rondels’ points glittering in the light of the fallen short sword and Ruby’s necklace. His knife went into something, plunging deep, and immediately whatever he hit moved sharply downwards, the blade sliding out of the wound. Blood stained the knife. The invisibility spell no longer affected the blood that had been separated from the body.


  Almë, hearing the commotion behind him, glanced over his shoulder. He saw his friends in the corner of the hallway, lit by moving lights and hidden by dancing shadows, converging on something. They’ve got that in hand, he thought. He couldn’t see what they were fighting as there were too many bodies in the way. Whatever it was, they were all over it like ravens on a battlefield. “Hey,” he shouted, “you guys got Lennerd?”


  He turned back to look in the direction he was going, towards the game room at the end of the hallway. The privy door at this end of the hallway opened.


  “We don’t know!” Taid shouted, not taking his eyes off of the melee in front of him. Whatever Almë was doing, he was on his own for now.


  Elitheris dropped her bow; her knife was already in her other hand, and she wanted a hand free to grab whatever it was that they were fighting. Then she could go to town with her knife. Her free hand encountered ridged flesh sliding under her gloved fingers, and she could feel muscles bulging and flexing. Something about those muscles and how they moved didn’t feel right. She got the impression that it might be an arm, but she wasn’t sure. As she gripped harder, she could feel movement in the skin, a feeling like moving strings or veins. It creeped her out, but she hung on.


  Taid knew it wasn’t Lennerd. He suspected that it was one of Kallia’s experiments, one that she had maybe implanted an invisibility shard into. And, since she couldn’t find it, she left it here to do its own thing. The note they had found had said “don’t call up what you can’t put down”. He was under the impression that this was a case study.


  From his point of view, the creature was swamped by three of his companions: Norolind, basically in front, while Eykit struck from the flank, and Elitheris had gone in on that same side and grabbed some part of it. There was a narrow space between Norolind and Elitheris…a perfect little keyhole to shove Maggie through. So he did.


  The top spike hit something this time: Taid could feel the slight resistance the steadily increased as it sank farther and farther into the creature. He kept pushing, until the spike bottomed out and the head of the halberd axe and hook were pressed up against the creature’s chest. And then he kept pushing, trying to pin it against the privy door.


  He had a dog and two knife-wielders attacking it already; he figured the best course of action was to lock it in place and let the others make mincemeat of it.


  Mister Wiggles got into the fight, jumping onto Nori’s back and using it to launch himself at the thing. He couldn’t see it, but he could smell it, and see where the members of his pack were. He had a decent idea where the thing was. He even got his jaws on something, but it moved out of his mouth before he could clamp his jaws shut.


  Ruby ran forward, staff ready. She gave a quick thrust of her staff, but it hit the wall, striking a spark off the tile.


  Elitheris felt something wrap around her body, then screamed in pain as claws raked both sides of her body, tearing through her gambeson. Blood welled up, soaking into the layers of linen.


  Eykit could see that something had grabbed Elitheris; her gambeson was squeezed up against her body as if something was giving her a bear hug. A bear hug followed by raking claws.


  Like Elitheris, he had a hand free, and used it to find the enemy, grabbing onto what felt like an arm. When he struck with the knife, however, it managed to move out of the way, although the Goblin managed to keep ahold of the limb as it shifted about.


  Almë moved to the side of the hallway opposite the door, to get a better angle on it. Striding through the doorway was a feminine looking zombie thing, with long sharp front teeth. It wore rags that hung in tattlers on its body. It didn’t look like it had skin, and the muscles looked like they were moving in ways muscles didn’t usually move. Almë recognized its type: a Shard zombie. It hissed at him as he gripped his staff in a guard position.


  Elitheris, reeling from the pain of the raking claws, used her grip on the thing’s upper arm to figure out a place to plunge her Elven rondel dagger into it. She was pretty sure she hit its chest; she could feel the very slight resistance that flesh had against her enchanted dagger. It was a quick in and out; she would have liked to quickly pierce the creature again, but the shock of being wounded made her doubt her grip on the knife.


  Taid leaned his weight on Maggie, pinning the creature against the privy door. He watched as tears appeared in Elitheris’ gambeson, which soon started turning red as her blood began oozing into the linen.


  He spoke a few soft words, and subliminal magenta motes of light flowed down his arm to spin and dance around his fingertips. He reached out and touched the wounded Elven woman, and the motes shot from his fingers into Elitheris’ body. The cuts on her back and sides closed, leaving only minor scars. They had barely had a chance to bleed. Hah! Taid thought gleefully. I just undid everything you tried to do, motherfucker!


  Mister Wiggles, after missing with his first attempt, spun around to face the invisible thing for another try. This time, he manage to clamp his jaws around what could only be its leg. He held on, despite it trying to fling him off. It was strong; the borderbull wasn’t the largest dog, at twenty five kilos or so, but he was big enough to be a significant weight.


  Norolind, his leg still not able to support him, tried again to find some part of the thing to bite down on. He failed; with his leg damaged, it was harder for him to be quick enough to attack successfully.


  Ruby realized that sticking the staff into the melee wasn’t very effective. However, it was a magic staff, that extended her reach. She was a mage, with fire spells. All she had to do was touch the creature with her staff, then channel a flame jet through it. There would be some flames splashing out between the end of her staff and the creature, but it wouldn’t bathe her friends (and, more importantly, the dogs) in flames. She threaded the end of her staff past Norolind and above Mister Wiggles, then cast the Spell of Flame Jet. Flames spewed out of the end of her staff, burning the creature.


  The flames licked about what appeared to be its neck, right shoulder, and the right side of its head. Everyone had a pretty good idea where it was now.


  The creature attacked Elitheris. It was pinned in place, encumbered by about a hundred kilos of canine, and hemmed in by two other combatants. But it had its tongue…which flicked out, hitting Elitheris in the face. The needle on the end of it pierced her cheek, leaving a small pinhole. It didn’t really do any damage to her, but it did inject its poison.


  Immediately she could feel herself get the shakes, and her extremities were tingling and burning. Aw shit, she thought, I know what this crap is! She could feel herself losing coordination and balance. But she also knew that it was temporary. At least, she hoped so.


  Almë, away from the excitement at the other end of the hallway, had his own problems. The thing in the doorway launched itself (herself?) at him, arms upraised, hissing. He waited, his staff ready to sweep its legs out from under it.


  It came into range, and he tried to knock its legs out from under it, but it was fast enough to hop over the staff and come in for a tackle.


  Almë was fast too; he hopped to one side, out of the way, and the thing crashed into the wall and turned on him, hissing again. Almë was pretty sure it was mad that he’d moved out of the way.


  Elitheris could see the flames delineating the right side of its head, and she could easily fill in where the left side of its head would be. It was about Goblin height, and the flames showed it had Goblin ears. She aimed her dagger for the side of its head, hoping for an ear.


  The dagger plunged in, although she noticed a resistance, like some kind of shell around it.


  Taid shoved the halberd forward, trying to completely pierce through the creature. Over the din of the battle he could hear the squeaking of wood as Maggie’s top spike dug into the door.


  The dogs shook and worried their foe, their teeth cutting into its flesh.


  Ruby kept the flames going, and the smell of burnt meat filled the hallway. Then something grabbed the end of her staff, moving it away and causing the flames to sear Norolind’s side. He whined, but didn’t let go. She cut off the spell to prevent more damage to her friends.


  Eykit stabbed it again. Her dagger stabbed into its left foot, the point of the knife passed completely through the foot, and buried itself into the mortar between two of the marble floor tiles. Its foot was pinned.


  Almle struck twice with his staff. His first strike was a feint, and the dead thing fell for it. His second strike was another sweep.


  But it was fast, so fast. Even with the feint, the thing managed to get out of the way of the staff. From the privy doorway, Almë could hear the rustling and squeaking of rats. Lots of rats. They flooded towards him in a swarm. And the undead thing attacked him, biting him in the neck. It latched on, and began draining his blood.


  Taid cast another healing spell, this time on Norolind’s damage leg. Again he could “see” the glowing motes of light as they flooded from him to Nori’s leg, and the claw marks sealed up. His leg seemed to gain strength, and he got it under him and supporting his weight again.


  Ruby’s staff was still being held at the far end. She wrenched it back onto its body, despite it fighting her. She cast the Spell of Flame Jet again.


  The invisible creature tried to pull itself away from the door. It needed to move, and Taid’’s halberd kept it from doing so. It was strong, stronger than a Goblin should be, but it wasn’t enough. Taid kept it in place.


  The female zombie thing was sucking Almë’s blood, its arms embracing him in a morbid hug. He levered his staff between his head and its face. The angle was awkward, but he did his best, and while it shifted a bit, he could feel its arms tighten, holding on. He could feel its tongue sliding around the wound in his neck, lapping up the blood. Almë could feel the strength leaving him with each swallow of his blood.

He took what comfort he could in the fact that he’d come close to pushing it off of him. He’d try again, until he succeeded, which would be soon.

And then the rats reached him, climbing up his legs and swarming all over him.

Elitheris stabbed into the creature again, plunging into its face and pulling the knife out sideways, opening a huge, gash that she couldn’t even see.

Taid wrenched the top spike out of the door, out of the creature, then shoved it in again. It hit the creature in its leg, tearing through its muscles and crippling the leg. The creature slumped down, its leg unable to carry its weight. Taid could feel the weight drag Maggie’s point downward.

Ruby’s flame jet spewed out of the end of her staff, the gout of flame striking its already crippled leg.

Something hit Eykit in the shoulder, and he could feel the same symptoms that Elitheris had mentioned: shakiness and lousy coordination. Fuck, he thought. Just what I needed. He left the knife in the creature’s foot, and used his second one to stab at it again. The knife slid into its guts.