Difference between revisions of "Amanita (Chapter 16)"

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Amanita (Act II)#Chapter 16

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-The mind is a strange thing.  Even the Viz-Jaq'taar don't know everything about it.  The mind never stops working, even when you're asleep so dead to the world even the bugs can't wake you.  I think I was dreaming about Hashep, and Inella, fried to a crisp in some bedroom in the palace.  Most of the others were probably dead too, people I haven't seen in years.  My dream was dark and empty.  I was struggling in a void.  I could see the palace, rich and bright in front of me.  Inella was there, where the harem guilds fled when Diablo started messing things up.  Then the Vizjerei came, and killed her.  The Vizjerei...
-Suddenly, I was awake.  Ticks and fleas ran for their lives, bellies not quite full.  The quarter moon outside my window gleamed off the shivering dust motes I'd thrown into the air.  I was an idiot.  Why didn't I catch it when I heard it?  Because of that damned crown.  I'd gotten too used to just looking to tell when someone was lying.  I threw my crap on and hustled my ass to the palace.  Two guardsmen were at the door.
-"Halt!" the one on the right said.  "You may not enter the palace."
-This was not a time for subtlety.  I wasn't in the mood for it anyway.  "You don't need to keep me out of the palace."
-"We don't need to keep you out of the palace."
-"There's no need to guard this door anymore."
-Dejection crept onto their faces, and their spear points drooped to the ground. "There's no need to guard this door anymore."
-"You need to go to Atma's and get blind drunk."
-The one guy looked at his partner.  "We need to go to Atma's and get blind drunk."
-The other guy, who never said a word through all this, nodded, and they moped off.  I filed their reactions for later and barged in.  The palace lived up to its advertising.  There were silver statues of nude ladies on pedestals draped with purple velvet, nice soft furniture, and a great many floor cushions, some with golden tassels and some just naked.  A nice place if you didn't get too rough, but I couldn't find anybody inside, not even servants.  There was a strange wanted poster in the city guard's offices:
-WANTED: Varnae Cesare Amygda von Rhus
-Height: Perfect for today's fashions
-Weight: Don't ask, he'd have a nervous breakdown
-Eyes: Languid, jaded
-Hair: Free-flowing locks of purest (but premature!) silver
-Sex: Let's have no ill-mannered speculations, hmm?
-Distinguishing features: Six-foot boner
-On charges of:
-Public Intoxication
-Impersonating a Fashion Policeman
-Assassin abuse
-Conduct unbecoming to a necromancer
-Reward!  Call LGPD for more information.  Keep our city clean.
-Conduct unbecoming to a necro?  There is such a thing?  Then I heard it: a faint shuffling from one of the equipment lockers.  Through the little grille, I saw the top of a white turban, quivering faintly.  A few kicks caved the locker door in, and there was Jerhyn, trying very, very hard to look like he hadn't been hiding at all.
-"What are you doing in here?" he yelped imperiously, stretching up to his full height inside the smashed locker.  "I'll have you know that you are trespassing.  Leave at once, or I shall summon my guardsmen.  And Drognan."
-"Don't bluff when you've got nothing in your hand, you little sh!t.  There's nobody here but you and me, and we are going to have a little discussion."
-"What is there to discuss?" he huffed.  "I am not fond of repeating myself, but you are trespassing.  If you leave quietly, I am willing to forget that any of this ever happened."
-"I don't forget that easily.  I remember you telling me the harem guilds came to hide in the palace, after all the troubles began.  And I remember that Vizjerei you let in here killed one of the girls, inside the palace.  You were pretty specific about that."
-"Yes, all of that is true," Jerhyn said, trying to push the locker open.  I planted my foot on it and shoved him back in.  "Release me at once, or suffer the consequences!"
-"But the Vizjerei was here before the troubles began.  After Faduwas got roasted, he was nowhere to be found.  So he couldn't have met that harem girl here."
-"I..." Jerhyn's eyes darted from side to side.  "Perhaps I misspoke at some point --"
-"You said what you meant to.  You just got your timing messed up.  What'd you offer the Vizjerei to off your father and make you sultan?"
-Nothing really changed in Jerhyn's face, but suddenly he looked ten years older and twenty years nastier.  "You have no proof of any such association."
-"I don't care.  What'd you give him?  He wouldn't want money anymore.  Or did Drognan handle the payoff, and keep your hands clean?"
-He glared hard enough to skin a cat alive, then laughed.  "He was a fool.  All he wanted was to visit my cellars."
-"What's in the cellar?"
-"How should I know?  It is the business of servants to --"  The butt of my crossbow smashed into his nose.  He yelped in pain, both hands darting up to protect his face.
-"I don't like repeating myself either," I snarled.  "What's important in the cellar?  Is that where he went after killing your father?"
-"No!  There is no one in the cellars!"
-"Not even harem girls?"
-"Oh, yes, of course they're there..."  The butt of my crossbow slammed into his gut.  He instantly doubled over, whimpering like a child.
-"How should I know?  No one's seen them for weeks.  Or your guards.  Or anybody!  Have you been bringing them food?  You haven't been in the market buying food, someone would have commented on that."
-"My servants --"
-"WHAT servants?!" I yelled, kicking the door in on him some more. "There is no one here!  You're in an empty palace, there's a murdering sorcerer somewhere, and maybe I'm going out on a limb here but I think the two might just be connected.  What do you think?"
-"But my guards --"
-"You've got no guards!  Has your yelping brought any guards running to your rescue?  You are out of guards.  Did they all go into the cellars and not come out?"
-"There is nothing wrong," he sniveled, trying to hide behind what was left of the locker door.  "Everything's fine, nothing we can't take care of if we just pull together..."
-I could take the crown off and dig for the truth.  It's not like it was welded on.  But that would mean going into his mind, and right then I'd rather tongue-kiss a zombie.  Beating him unconscious was much more satisfying.  I think I dented his crown.
-In the cellar, the first thing I found was a dead guardsman, impaled on his own spear the long way.  A columned hall stretched away to my left, with rows of girls tied down using their own silks and satins.  Someone had tried several times to see how much flesh a woman could have removed before she died.  All I could think of was the old saying: a woman, though naked, may be in rags.  At least there weren't any redheads.
-Through a grilled window, I could see something moving around. Raiders.  I dropped them like flies, and went through the rest of the cellar.  The whole palace was packed with weird creatures: big monkey-like things whose skin was covered with bony spikes, pot-bellied giants swinging human bodies wrapped in chains as weapons, and skeletons. There were lots of grilles to shoot through, which was fine for the living opponents.  The skeletons all had bows or magic, and didn't care much about poison anyway.  At least they weren't fresh; all of them were old and burned black, summoned rather than raised from the abundant local materials.
-Jerhyn wasn't kidding when he said cellars -- I counted four levels.  The lower three were plain sandstone, and looked a lot older than what was above.  Bodies were still everywhere.  I haven't seen that many dead women since the Rogue monastery, though to the sultanate's credit, the demons didn't find any torture equipment here.  They had to improvise.  Jerhyn was still a little sh!t, though.  What was he trying to do, keeping this hidden until his guards were almost all gone?  Someone down here was summoning these things.  You don't just put guards around a summoner and hope he'll get tired of summoning.  Damn Vizjerei.  Yeah, they supposedly swore of demon summoning after the Horazon-Bartuc debacle, but sorcerers can't stand to give up power.
-The strongest Raider guarded the door to the lowest cellar's center.  I took stock.  This joker likes firewall, so move your feet.  Fire resistance and lightning resistance are good.  I kicked the door open, shoulder-rolled in... and there was no one there.  The room was empty except for a gate, an old-fashioned Vizjerei spired portal.  hmm... this must by why he wanted into the cellars.  Come to think of it, wasn't there an old Vizjerei fort in this part of the world, way back when Horazon and Bartuc were still around?
-The hunch was as vague as heat shimmers above desert sands.  I went in.  The gate led to a maze of marble paths, floating in a starry void.  Braziers full of pure elemental fire provided heat and light.  Near the portal was a Horadric waypoint, in good working order.  This had to be Horazon's Arcane Sanctuary, a pocket dimension his demon "slaves" built for him.  This enchanted hidey-hole was his biggest obsession, which says a lot if you know anything about Horazon.  Supposedly, he put a lot of work into this place, but since he was the only one who knew how to get in, it was lost after he disappeared.
-Exploring the maze took a while.  Horazon had everything: working traps, impossible buildings, even teleport pads that covered a distance of maybe 10 feet.  Heaven forbid that he should have to walk that far.  There was no railing on the catwalks.  I tried spitting over the edge.  The glob fell onto the polished marble, never going over.  I tossed a bolt to another section of path.  It landed fine, but when I tossed bolts into the void, they wouldn't fall -- they always landed on a safe section of path.  What a show-off.  Why build something simple, like guard rails, when you can make a universe that bends to your every whim?  Sorcerers.
-Everything in there was made to flatter a high sorcerer's ego.  The braziers were held by servile demons, cast in bronze.  One section of maze had columns that looked like obedient demons.  The bases of the lightning-trap towers were ringed by five supportive demon.  A platform that might have been a library once had demons at its corners, cringing and offering up a tomes of knowledge.  At least his treasuries were rich, and looked untouched.  Not that the place was empty -- far from it, with a summoner in residence.  The Vizjerei found some ghosts who might have been here when he arrived, and added Goat Demons and Vampires. Vampires are smart enough to learn the firewall spell, which was probably why he brought them in, but I couldn't figure out what he wanted goats for.  Maybe they're fire resistant, so he thinks they're tough.  I had more trouble with the ghosts, which could float over the gaps between maze sections.  The others wouldn't even use the teleport pads.
-Like usual, the one I wanted was in the last place I thought to look, and he'd gotten tired of waiting a long time ago.  Kind of describes my love life.  As I rounded the last corner, I saw the Vizjerei on a platform, wearing some very old-fashioned robes and holding a staff.  Did he find some of Horazon's stuff?  Likely he did, and maybe the possessed idiot thought wearing his clothes meant he owned this place.  Like Horazon ever really owned this place.  I hopped the firewall, dodged an ice bolt, and put one in his throat.
-The platform might have been Horazon's den or bedroom or something, a long time ago.  At least, he left his journal here.  Most of it was typical sorcerous ravings, but he did make a few notes about the capture of Baal.  In particular, he noted where the tomb was and how to get there in clear and easily-understood terms.  Even I could get it.  Imagine that... clear, easily-understood language from a sorcerer.  No wonder he put it in his secret diary.  If they ever found out, all the other sorcerers would have laughed at him.  I went to the waypoint, followed directions, and there I was, in a small blind canyon with the sun just coming up over the edge.  Seven tombs ringed the canyon walls, just like they were supposed to.  If my luck held, this whole mission could be over before nightfall.

Difference between revisions of "Amanita (Chapter 16)"

Latest revision as of 16:42, 13 February 2017

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