El’s journal #003
Certainly part of the money problem is now solved, at least for a little while. But damn if that Mallard fellow isn’t one crazy ingemdir. The job that he offered us was killing the demons in his basement.
We all shared a glance over that one. Demons aren’t usually one for actually staying in the basement. He seemed senile, and rather paranoid, so I figured these would be perhaps some very large cockroaches, perhaps a particularly good-sized rat or two. That was actually a fairly accurate assessment. About the basement itself.
Turns out this man’s house sat atop an entrance to the Mulhirandi underworld. The etchings above the well-worn entranceways indicated it was a theatre of ages past. The jewels had been pulled from their settings, the friezes chipped and scoured, obscuring any intricate carvings. We found a good deal of refuse, and some small amount of treasure, but largely the caverns were looted bare.
I make it sound as though it were easy plunder—it was, but not without some amount of skirmishing. Skirmish, not battle, largely because our opponents were small creatures— birds, zombies, kobalds or puppies… and roast chickens. I’m still a bit puzzled by the fowl play, but then again I suppose kobalds don’t really think of roasted chicken as succulent goodness. They prefer rotted chicken.
But about the hens: it was a clever trap, and I ponder it still now — kobalds so smart, so clever? The last kobald we found, the sorceress… that was weird. The book she had was a Journal of Draconic Experimentation.
I had a little time to look over it while sitting watch, and it seemed pretty heavy stuff for a race of rat-men. That sorceress kobald, though, makes me read it with sincerity. She had wings. WINGS. Tensile, fibrous, stringy black wings that curled up against her back. Wings leathery like those
of a dragon… and she’s reading a book about draconic magicks. A book that claims that kobalds and dragons have sameness in their past, a book that tells of how the First Ones bred smaller and smaller dragon-kobalds, and with them ruled Mulhorand. Even I am too young to recall those days, and I have many questions which cannot currently be answered since my companions are younger still.
Perhaps they would have been answered by the black stick figures that we saw in the wavering light, while the Great Machine was still whirring in Mallard’s basement. It stirs no more, broken and burned, smoking, just a ruin. Powered by the dead—even the information I seek is probably better left lost at that price. But I have saved the book in case I come to a place where it can tell me more than it does now. I will send it to Memnon the first chance I get.
[ backstory: Mages need a library. El’haliel travelled for some time without one, but eventually her belongings slowed her down. For a while she settled in one general place, renting a room long-term until she figured out what to do. This was between Calimshan and Tethyr, travelling often back and forth between Castle Tethyr and Memnon on various jobs. With her marks in charisma, she fairly easily made friends of her employers and those she worked with, and especially so had a friendly repoire with Zebidiah Turnwood, a blacksmith and swordsmaker who lived on the banks of the River Ith. The in-name-only princes that she ran the most errands for (and stupid errands at that) often wanted newer, brighter, stronger weapons for their constant tests of manhood, their sporting games. She spent a lot of time in the blacksmith’s shop on-duty and it wasn’t long before she was joining Marilbella, Zeb and their four children for picnics and Sunday suppers. They eventually convinced her to board in a smaller house on their property (one Zeb had built when their family was smaller). She hesitantly accepted, but ended up staying far longer than she planned, a couple of years. When it was time to go, Zeb found her quietly packing up her belongings, sadly hauling away bags of stuff to be discarded. On the spot he offered her use of the house for as long as she liked, at a price that was enough to salve her guilt, but no more… and a promise that she would return to it, whenever her travels brought her nearby. He is a very good friend to her, and somewhere she can turn to if things go badly or she needs recuperation. It is also a place she can send books or packages, and a place she does send money, to cover the rent of her little house.]
The book is intriguing, as is the old woman. Some of the other creatures had enchanted items, so there was some amount of power in the ancient bird. The strange zombie-wolves and their masters shared a matching set of ruby jewelry, which I have now. Their magic feels like her hand. An amulet in the shape of a clenched fist also radiated mild power. A wand with 8 charges of Silence. A short sword. The more I sit here, the more I think we did quite well.
We divided up the spoils, plus our payment from Mr. Mallard. We see now what the ‘demons’ had done to him: the little devils had rigged a sound spell, to carry their voices from the echoing tombs to the rooms of the house. They had driven him quite mad with their play-acting. Without the voices, I’m not certain he will recover, but they have at least been silenced. We did what we could for him, and he wants for nothing aside from sanity. Tonight I have had a few drinks of my own, and can think about going to market tomorrow to purchase nicer equipment. It’s an upswing of my luck, and I should enjoy that.