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| Fan Fiction & Art Home | Chronicles
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part
3
During its journey, the party does not overtake the strange threesome from the hotel. This is odd, since they seemed to have been on foot. After a time Ganelon loses the spell caster's trail. The guide, Anilith, then points out some dark-stalker tracks.
That night, nervous about dangerous creatures, the party discusses if Roan should summon a fire elemental to guard the camp. There is a brief argument about whether or not scaring creatures with fire is worth the risk of attracting humans with the same. Ganelon gripes that such a thing is a beacon to enemies rather than a deterrent.
Eventually, Roan decides that the benefit is worth the risk and performs the ritual to summons a Fire Elemental by chanting, invoking and walking the perimeter of the campfire for an hour. The rite culminates in Roan slashing her hand with her knife and letting the blood drip into the flames. The flames then seem to coalesce around a tight ball, which floats up above the campfire. Sternly, she tells this fire elemental to kill anything that crosses from the woods into the campsite. As the elemental dashes about killing all kinds of insects, Roan blushes slightly at creating Kulthea's largest bug zapper. She sheepishly warns the party to definitely let her know if they want to relieve themselves in the woods.
Meanwhile the Ambassador creates an illusion of a bear that will be triggered if anyone crosses the camp boundary. "It will be a bear, very large, making a frightening sound. Please do not be alarmed by the terrible effectiveness of my spells," he declares.
Later that same night, Kerod approaches Roan and they begin to argue in low voices. "Now, now, now," says the Ambassador as he approaches. "I must say, arguing is not conducive to the safety of the whole. Let us air our grievances."
"Kerod got me kidnapped!" Roan bursts out, thrusting her cigarette in a stabbing motion toward Kerod's face.
"I didn't have anything to do with it," Kerod insists in a patronizing voice, "I was just trying to help!"
"It was Ibali!" Roan adds.
Dobro runs up and advances upon Kerod threateningly. "Tell us," she hisses. It seems that the dwarf still harbors a healthy distrust of the healer and his motives, and she knows Ibali to be a long-time party nemesis.
"Who is Ibali?" demands Ganelon.
"We met him in Thuul and he—" begins Dobro, but Kerod interrupts her by saying, "He is a man who works for a great mistress, we think maybe a dragon." Kerod leans forward in a confidential manner, giving each person a meaningful look. "Ibali's mind is twisted and evil and he is a worshiper of the Charonese god, Moralis. He is the God of Lust and Pain.." At this point, Roan shifts uncomfortably and looks almost pained. Oblivious to her discomfort, Kerod continues. "I believe his mistress works for good, however. She certainly fights against Unlife." Kerod's eyes grow unfocused yet gleam with an inner fire. With an expansive wave of his arm, he stands and announces in a strong voice, "It is my goal to one day cure Ibali of his mental illness and work with him against the forces of evil."
Shayna looks thoughtful. "Roan, how did you get free?"
Kerod says, "By doing Ibali's bidding, I secured her freedom."
"What?" say both the Ambassador and Shayna together.
"The places that, of late, I recommended we go, he suggested to me. By cooperating, I freed Roan." Roan, hearing this, shakes her head in flat denial.
"You mean . . ." Shayna draws a line in the dirt with her dagger. "Everything we have done of late, we have done for this man who kidnapped Roan?"
"In a manner of speaking," Kerod replies, nodding to himself. "We did a great deal of good."
"Yes, but for whom?" asks Dobro.
"Can we kill Ibali?" Shayna looks to the others.
"He is hard to kill," Dobro says. "I swear I ran my axe through his skull, and yet, he lives. He blinked out of existence, as if he were teleported somewhere, and then later, he came back, looking only a little ill."
"Well, I demand that if anyone in the party meets with Ibali again, that person has to tell the rest of us," Shayna spits angrily. Everyone agrees.
The conversation is ended at that moment, for shouting is then heard from the woods. It seems that people are running toward the clearing. "There is a fire! Here it is!" shouts an urgent voice in Common. Ganelon, who has been slowly moving away from the group, is the first to see people running toward the clearing. "Over here! There is a fire! Here it is!" shouts an urgent voice in Common.
Believing that the approaching strangers are in need of assistance, Roan straightens and commands the elemental not to attack. As the group peers into the dark, it becomes clear that the two spell casters from the hotel are running toward the camp! As one runs past the camp, another jumps on a horse, cruelly digging his heals into the creature's sides and dashing off into the dark forest. The Ambassador's bear illusion is triggered, but apparently it's not as frightening as whatever is chasing the runners.
On the edge of the campfire light, the Changramai-like bodyguard pauses and seems to attack something behind him. He whirls around and rushes through the camp, heading in the same direction as his two companions. The woodland shadows are so thick that the party still can't identify what is chasing the three travelers until a moment later when they discover that this very rude threesome has led two chimera to the campsite—two very mad chimera, complete with very large claws. Each has three heads, some of which are breathing fire.
Roan commands the elemental to attack "the things with four legs," and points at the chimera. The elemental dashes at the horses instead! (Apparently, the bug-zapper incident slipped Roan's mind.) Ganelon's horse takes a beating. Roan is devastated, since she is an adoptee into one of the Rhiani horse clans. She calls the elemental back to stay in the campfire. She remains in camp, with Anilith, who is still in her elvish meditation.
Dobro charges forward, taking a blast of heat from one of the beasts but hacking away regardless. Shayna darts through the trees and attacks the other from behind with her sword, which bursts into flames at her command. The Ambassador hides behind a bush and casts "blur" on Dobro and Ganelon. Ganelon shoots an arrow, and then is hit with a blast of fire. His hair (and most of his clothes) disappears in a puff of smoke and he stumbles!
Orland also lets loose an arrow, and narrowly avoids a stream of fire himself. Safely behind his shieldman Garvin, Kerod prepares a spell from his magic bracelet. He then peers around Garvin's shield to point the bracelet at one of the chimera. Reddish black energy surrounds the chimera, and a large "snap" is heard. Kerod has broken one of the chimera's limbs. Dobro and Shayna close in, blades whirling.
Finally the chimera are destroyed. Kerod offers to heal Dobro, but she demurs, saying, "No friend of Ibali treats my injuries." She uses the corset of healing, which she has been wearing since she first saw it on the boat.
Kerod opens his mouth to protest, then shrugs and moves on toward tending the other wounded, including the horses. At last everyone is healed as much as possible, but Ganelon and Dobro need total rest to recover fully. In addition, Ganelon still has no clothes. The Ambassador graciously gives Ganelon a loan of a finely crafted periwinkle scarf. Mustering as much dignity and graciousness as he can, the near-naked scout accepts the gift with seriousness and turns it into a workable kilt in record time.
Ganelon and Shayna briefly venture into the woods and find that the thief abandoned the horse not long after making his escape. They return it to the camp, and there is a discussion about whether the group is in any shape to chase after the threesome. At last, there is agreement that everyone is either too injured, low on power, or tired to enter into another battle. The party decides to find the chimera lair and camp there for the night, as it is sure to be both empty and defendable.
So, in the middle of the night, the walking wounded move on towards the chimera lair, leading the horses behind Shayna as she back-tracks the path of the beasts. Dobro stoically holds herself up, while Ganelon feels too weak and must finally get on his horse. After thirty minutes, they come around a bend in the path and see a white-clad figure standing before a cave.
Roan tenses, ready to cast an offensive spell. Shayna fingers her broadsword and Ganelon reaches for his bow. As the mysterious person turns to face the group, there is a gasp of recognition as the companions recognize the features of Ambassador Fidelity!
He claims to have come to Lys as part of his continued study of the above ground world. He says he happens to have been looking for a cave with good acoustics, and while he approached this one he recognized Kerod's voice, among others, coming toward him. Therefore, he waited. The party should perhaps have questioned him more thoroughly, but it appears to be Fidelity, and he certainly doesn't appear to be up to anything nefarious. The Ambassador Maximilian rushes forward to greet his associate in their usual manner:
"Ambassador," he states gravely, nodding his head at Fidelity.
"Ambassador," acknowledges Fidelity with a bow.
"Ambassador!" Maximilian returns, honoring Fidelity with more emphasis. All around, eyes roll skyward at this greeting, which is all too familiar to the party members.
Once inside the lair, they see that it is clearly divided into several rough chambers, not quite natural, not quite worked stone. The chambers seem to contain a refuse pit, a large refrigerated area for carcasses and storage, and a bedding or nesting area. The Ambassador Maximilian finds some stone and clay tablets. Although they aren't in a language known to him, the Ambassador has many spells at his disposal and tells the party that they amount to diaries describing the Chimera's arrival not too long ago and their decision that this was a good nesting area to raise their family.
In the meantime, Orland finds some refrigerant bottles that are too cold to pick up and Roan tries to summon another elemental guardian. Unfortunately, she is so tired that she stumbles over the words and flames rise and seem to envelop her. Although not burned, she glows with magical power for a moment and falls over, unconscious.
Kerod, the party's expert in healing, examines Roan and determines that she is suffering from an overload of magical power and that there is nothing to do but wait for her to recover. While she is made comfortable, Kerod finds the dead body of a baby chimera in the nest room. He tries to examine it in order to determine how it died and sees a great abdominal wound. In his enthusiasm, he gets quite messy and ruins any chance a skilled investigator would have to pick up some clues.
Meanwhile, Fidelity casts forth his power and seeks a vision of this place. He is not disappointed as he receives a vision of everyone's favorite three men. In a prophet's trance, Fidelity speaks to the party: "They run into the lair, chopping down the bedroom door, and casting spells that cause the baby chimera to bleed from hundreds of wounds. Then they take something out of its middle—a liver? a kidney?—and proceed to loot the chest on the floor."
"Thank you, Ambassador," says Maximilian as he frowns thoughtfully and twists the ring on his finger—the same ring Lord Meralonne gave to him.
"Ambassador," nods Fidelity with respect.
"Ambassador," Maximilian returns, bowing. Then he springs up with great fury. "Now I see what this means!" squeaks the diminutive Halfling. "The spell casters not only led the chimera to our camp, but they provoked them in the first place by killing their baby! I must say that this is an outrage!"
While the Ambassadors are having their exchange, Kerod sees something under the baby and reaches for it. As his hand contacts a seven-foot long iron staff, to his horror he is drained all of his magical power. Several of his magic items appear drained as well. He says, "I'd better wait for Roan to wake up and investigate this." For some reason, he sets the staff aside and elects not to tell anyone else of either the staff or his inability to use magic for offense or defense.
Later, Roan wakes and is asked to further investigate the staff. She accidentally touches the staff and loses all her power also. She didn't mean to touch it, but when she bent over to look, she lost her balance and caught herself right on the staff!
A prophecy regarding the staff suddenly comes to Fidelity and he blurts out, "He who is powerful but has no skill will suffer."
Because of the "skill" part, Fidelity assumes that he can touch the staff safely. Alas, it is not the case, and Fidelity loses his magical power also. Ganelon and Shayna wisely decline to take a look. Roan examines it once more and recognizes it as possibly being the infamous Staff of Chen-Tan. This staff is known to destroy matter and magic indiscriminately. She is angry that she didn't make more of an effort to identify it before members of the party were made helpless. She begins to swear and curse at the situation. Finally the Ambassador bustles about making her a nice pipe of tobacco. Gratefully she sits and puffs.
At last, the decision is made to quickly get to a town. The party sets off—but not before burying the dangerous staff in a specific, hidden location. Roan insists that she does not wish to see the staff buried, but by the time Dobro is tramping the dirt over it, and Ganelon is camouflaging the spot with moss and old leaves, Roan is there. At that point, the entire group has a discussion about the staff. They agree to return for it at some point when they are better able to handle its unusual properties.
As the group travels away from the Staff of Chen-Tan, Roan scribbles something in her diary. Kerod approaches and touches her arm, causing her to look up impatiently. Calmly, he asks, "Are we OK?"
"I will trust you—for now—but if I think for a moment you are a threat to anyone here, or to my husband, by Rean I will kill you myself," she tells him.
Kerod blinks slightly at the threat, but then he smiles patiently. "Then we are OK." Roan moves forward and the discussion is ended. Ganelon looks at Kerod and shakes his head ruefully. Kerod nods at Ganelon, then turns and motions for Garvin to follow. Dobro frowns and falls in step beside Roan. Shayna has already disappeared, scouting ahead. The Ambassador loads up his carriage, fondly patting his barrel of ale, then looks forward to where Anilith is already moving down the path. Quickly, he follows suit. The party is on the road again.
To be continued…
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