Moonday, 6 Abadius

In the end, my hearing was not faulty.  I did hear “spider climb” and I did hear ropes, and I did indeed hear “long way to fall”.  So we’re going to ascend the tower, from the outside, during broad daylight, with the crowd watching.

So Father, if you’re reading this between blood spattered pages, please do thank the person who brought you this journal and ask them if they know what became of my body.

For the first time I can remember — and perhaps it’s because this is such a public endeavour — I do feel apprehension.  You never mentioned this, Father, but perhaps it’s natural not to admit to your son that there will be times when you are scared but can’t do anything about it.

There is a shy but attractive girl in the gathering crowd that I saw at the market when I was picking up rope, and since I don’t believe we’re ready for this ascent just yet, I think I’ll go talk with her a bit as a bit of pleasant distraction.

Moonday, 6 Abadius

How prophetic my feeling was.  How profoundly prophetic.  All hail Trask the prophet, and then curse him for having blurry vision and not seeing the true target of misfortune.

Right after Avia rudely broke into my conversation with the girl, just as she was about to tell me more about where she lived and a bit more about the area, and had offered to

Ok, I have to write this.  I thought paladins were above petty emotions like jealousy but I really think Avia crossed the line, just because I was talking with someone my own age and she felt threatened.  I do agree that she is strong and skilled but I don’t see how that affords her the right to dictate who I talk to and find interesting.  A simple “we’re ready” would have done fine.

Anyway, so after my having been physically dragged away from the young lady, we all positioned ourselves in front of the tower, and Sabin cast Spider Climb on himself while the rest of us received the spell by virtue of the six scrolls we (well, Kane and Rigel) had bought.  (That ran us an astounding 1000 gold pieces.  When I think of how I was scrabbling for silver on my trip here, I’m reminded of how much has happened in just a few months.)  The seven of us arranged ourselves two to a side but one side, of course, had only one.  And up we went, much to the pleasure of the crowd, judging from the ooos and ahhhs.

Little of import happened until we reached the scaffolding near the top of the tower.  The four of us nearest the scaffolding had been suffering the occasional brick being tossed down at us by something so we knew we’d be pausing there to deal with something.  And so it was that Sabin, Nolin, Avia and I found three of the faceless creatures we’d seen in Aldrin’s townhouse, and once we neared they brandished their weapons and the battle began in earnest.  Although these creatures were powerful, fate had placed our three strongest fighters in their path. With some maneuvering, I was able to arrange line of sight so that I could toss in the occasional magic missile.

When the first one died, Nolin cheerfully announced it had to go over the side.  “The crowd,” he explained.  “A body falling from the tower will show them we’re really doing things.”  It had a strange twisted sense of logic to it, so over the side it went.  And we heard a noise come up from the crowd below as it hit the ground about 150 feet below: “ohhhhhhhh”.

While this battle was happening, the other three were still ascending. With the clock tower being between 30 and 40 feet on a side at this point, they were unaware that we had stopped to fight.  They could neither see nor hear the evidence of battle, and so they kept going.

The swordplay and magic missiles continued on the scaffolding and it wasn’t long before another fleshy corpse was hurled to the ground below. (“ohhhhhhhh.”)  With only one creature and three fighters left, I saw little I could add to the battle, so I continued my ascent of the last 20 feet or so.  When the last creature was defeated and sent plummeting (“ohhhhhhh.”) the others also continued their ascent.

It is well that we went up as quickly as we did.  By the time I got up there, I could see an inhuman yet strangely attractive half-dressed woman with bat wings flying slowly around the building, and Rigel and Kane seemed to be silently battling some sort of serpent woman with a very long ornate spear.  She was wearing a mask and …

And I realized I couldn’t hear a thing.  A quick word out loud to myself confirmed that there was probably a spell of silence in this area. Quickly reviewing my spells, I realized that there was none that I could cast silently.  Almost anything offensive, though, required line-of-sight, so I couldn’t step away to cast it if it caused me to lose sight of my enemy.  I found it odd that Olithar was not up here already, but perhaps he, like I, was seeking a place where he could say his spells. Since spider climb did not require I necessarily have a rope to climb, I ducked and scampered across the face of the walls, trying to reach the other side where I expected to find Olithar.  I found that only a few feet below the edge of the roof, the silence ended, and I also found that it was not uniform all the way around the roof.  I hoped that when I reached the other side I might find Olithar and a place I could use my spells.

About this time the three fighters came up, and Avia immediately engaged the creature.  Its spear was wicked fast, and although she took damage as she approached she steadfastly made her way to within her weapon’s reach and made it pay dearly for its attack on our party.  This snake lady, however, was not going to go down easily.  Meanwhile, the creature we presumed was Xaneesha continued to survey the battle, flying slowly around the building.

I poked my head up on the other side of the roof and discovered that while the silence did not extend as far down the wall here, it did still prevent me from even poking my head over the wall and speaking.  But I did see Avia battling the creature, and Nolin and Sabin coming to the top of the roof themselves, but I now was on the backside.

And there was still no sign of Olithar, here, on the side of the building he was supposed to be on, and I began to feel a tingle of concern move up and down my spine.  There was no sign of him on this wall that I could see.  I began to fear the worst.

Refocusing, I remembered from previous battles that our swordsmen had commented how much easier it was to strike an opponent who was concerned about an attack from the rear. So although I really am not well suited for close attack as others in our group were, I realized I was the only one on the backside of this creature. Soon she would have three formidable swordsmen in front of her, and if a distraction from the rear afforded them a better opportunity to defeat her, it seemed well worth it.  Besides, she couldn’t strike at all of us at once and although I was a distraction, I was much less a threat and might well provide a distraction without great danger to my much lesser armored self.  As a sorceror, I was rather useless in an area of silence anyway; here was a way I could contribute.

So I too engaged the creature, who noticed me instantly.  In the next attack she managed to get two jabs at Avia and one at me.  Wicked fast, I remembered belatedly as blood poured from my wound.

Emboldened, Rigel too was able to surprise the creature with an arrow (with surprisingly good results — she must have been practicing!) Avia continued to weaken it, and Nolin and Sabin joined their swords to the effort.  Bereft of my magic missiles and burning spheres, I brought out the claws and cut her up a little too.

I had a brief feeling of despair, like we weren’t winning the battle, but of course we were and I shook it off.  A quick glance, however, at the faces of Rigel and Nolin suggested they’d been hit by the same feeling and were fighting on grimly but with less enthusiasm.  Another spell, I realized.

Suddenly, she took to the air.  No longer in close quarters, Avia was able to peg her with a quick arrow before she winked out of sight. Xaneesha stopped circling and landed at one corner of the roof. Rigel shot an arrow at her and she too winked out of sight.  Hindsight suggests, since that was the first hit she’d taken, that she had been nothing more than a phantasm all along.  In fact, with greater hindsight, I realized that the creature we’d been battling was, in all likelihood, actually Xaneesha.

We noticed the silence had ended, and Kane hastily stumbled over his words as he told us that Olithar had actually been the first to engage Xaneesha, if you can call being turned to stone at first glance an engagement.  As we gaped, he continued that she had then pushed him over the edge and he had fallen over 150 feet to the ground below and broken into several pieces.  I glanced down and could make out a pile of stones which had been our friend. “I have a mend spell,” I said. “I’ll go down and put him back together and maybe we can do something for him.”  I started to descend.

Suddenly Xaneesha appeared one more time, hovering in the air, and shot a scorching ray which blistered Avia.  I stopped my descent and took the opportunity to send another magic missile her way, which struck most satisfyingly.  And then she disappeared again.  I hesitated, wanting to help Olithar but not wanting to abandon my friends if she were still present.  Avia tried to sense evil, but couldn’t find any sign of her. Perhaps she was gone for good.

And then, from below, we heard the most awful, gurgling scream that was quickly cut off.  The crowd, even from 180 feet up, seemed agitated and one or two broke away to inspect the broken status before backing away and pointing.  And I realized, there was no help for our friend.  The transformation to stone had been temporary, and the intended mending not in time.  He had resumed flesh form, but having been broken into several pieces, he quickly (we can hope) died, bleeding profusely onto the ground around him.

It took us almost two minutes to descend safely to the ground and make our way over to him.  By then it was certainly too late to do anything.  Kane explained that Olithar had no sooner realized that there was an area of silence over the roof than Xaneesha had turned her attention to him.  Her eyes had glowed green, Olithar startled … and then turned to stone.  No opportunity to defend himself, no opportunity to draw a foe’s blood. Her rush to then push him over the edge telegraphed what we could not know: the spell was not permanent, and if the battle went on long enough, he would become a threat again when the spell wore off.

And so, an ignominious — dare I say igneous? — end to our comrade. Like many of us, he had made arrangements in the case of his death, and first among them was an admonition that he was not to be brought back. Such an action would cost us thousands of gold even if we could arrange it, but his wishes took the possibility out of our hands.

We had on occasion discussed theology, he and I, and he was astounded to find that I considered clerics and paladins to simply be adept at manipulating magical energy, much as I am, and that I considered gods, churches, and religion in general to simply be a complex means of focusing upon the energy around us and manipulating it.  For me, I seem to be able to gather it and have it flow to me, but for people with “divine powers” they seem to require the trappings of the office — the garb, the weaponry, the symbols, the devotion — to attain the same command of magic.  They attribute this to gods while not realizing their own capabilities.

Although I dearly wish I could have such a discussion with him again, I see now the truth of my position.  If gods existed, and had power upon this earth, how could they allow something so evil as Xaneesha so meaninglessly take the life of not just a random person, but one of those few supposedly chosen to expand that god’s influence on earth? What’s the point of being a priest if you don’t get special treatment? If such gods exist and they treat those most loyal to them so shabbily, why on earth would anybody else give them the time of day?  No, it’s even more clear now that the pantheon of gods is just a human construct for explaining some people’s skill with magical energy.

We disagreed on this very basic belief, but still, it was always in a respectful way, and I shall miss him. I take no pleasure in being shown right.

It turns out that Rigel, that human truffle pig, had nosed around the areas at the rooftop and found a non-magical scroll [243] that was a list of names.  Many were crossed off, and we recognized them as victims from both Magnimar and Sandpoint.   It was clear by the mere existence of the list that the victims chosen were not at all random.  We had noted earlier that they seemed to come from all walks of life, but this list underscored that the collection, as a whole, was precisely designed and chosen to be a cross-section of the city and countryside.  To what end, I don’t rightly know.

Most notable among the names not yet crossed off were the mayor, and our own Rigel, which evoked an odd combination of pride and paranoia from her.  However, next to the mayor’s name were numerous notes about his comings and goings, his eating habits, his travel plans — many personal notes about his life.  If he was not yet a victim, he was destined to be soon unless he made some changes.

The guard was adamant about not being able to take us to the mayor until we made mention of what information this scroll held.  They paled and said they would talk to a supervisor.  So it was that Nolin and Sabin visited the mayor later that day; Nolin due in part to his having strong connections to the city, and Sabin due in part to his being particularly bored, I think. I can’t imagine he went along to facilitate the conversation.

They returned telling us that the mayor took the news most seriously, and had said he would see not only to his on safety but all of those on the list.  Nolin skeptically relayed this part, indicating by his gestures and inflection that he tended to believe they had simply been humored on the visit.  The mayor had stated, however, that if the killings did indeed stop for a week after this latest battle, we would be rewarded for our service to the town.

For our part, we’ve agreed to protect Rigel regardless of the mayor’s intentions, and Rigel graciously agreed to being the object of our protection, deciding that she liked being among the living and not becoming the canvas for a seven sided piece of grisly art.

Moonday, 13 Abadius

Seven days to the hour, Sabin and Nolin and I returned to the mayor’s office for a followup visit.  There have been no more killings, but we were unsure if the mayor meant what he said.  Can’t hurt to ask.  And to be honest, I can’t say if the absence of ritual murders was because she has truly left and moved elsewhere or she’s simply healing from the beating we gave her.  The mayor was not present at his office, according to his seneschal, but he was throwing a lavish dinner that evening in our honor and we should all show up at 6.

With the mayor not seen on this visit, we had visions of doppelgangers and golems and the perfect opportunity to kill us all in a single stroke were we to appear at this previously unannounced “dinner”.   However, upon reflection, we decided perhaps we were living just a wee bit paranoid.  Avia headed over a mite early to secretly scout the grounds and the area, and she did see the mayor, and evidence of a party being set up so perhaps our paranoia was a bit overmuch.

So we struck a balance, dressing well but by no means weaponless.  And other than hearty greetings, repeated toasts, many congratulations, and much shaking of hands, nothing unusual happened at the dinner.  Well the mayor DID award us each 6000 gold pieces. Each.  6000.  Gold.   Pieces.

It took a moment to realize that while we were not yet filthy rich, none of us was exactly dirt poor any more either. I’ll need to do some training in the coming weeks, and for once I’ll have no trouble paying for it. We really have come quite a distance in just a few months.

Most of us, I remind myself.  Some of us, sadly, were unable to complete the journey.