The party left
the Moonstone Mask, collected Erwen, and returned to House Nidris, retiring to
their lodgings, but not before Siegfried dashed off a shopping list, handing it
to the house seneschal, Talzu. “Very good,
young master,” Talzu sniffed, examining the list. “I shall acquire”—he squinted
at the parchment—“these items for you, posthaste.” Siegfried
nodded. He had plans for some of the more prosaic items contained on the list. The
Trevelyan brothers chose to bunk together in a stately room with two four-poster
beds at the west end of the villa. Alec summoned his familiar, Shadow, who took
up a rather comfortable spot on a finely-knotted throw rug near the room’s
hearth. The fey not-dog was asleep in moments, paws in the air. Erwen made
his way to the greenhouse and climbed into the hollow of a tree trunk, falling
asleep instantly. Varien
returned to his chambers and stored his belongings under the bed, giving
Siegfried a signal that in no uncertain terms was he to sleep beneath the box
spring this evening. Rather than
visit the second-nicest room in the villa that had been set aside for him, Siegfried
chose to retire to a well-appointed study a ways down the second-floor hallway.
He spread out a number of documents across the wide table that dominated the
room, chief among them the gnarly skin-sheaved Orc grimoire he’d pinched from a
half-burned corpse beneath Wyvern Tor. The prospect of interacting with members
of his father’s race was no small matter to the young noble, and he felt the
need to prepare by embracing what he could of his mixed heritage. He pored
over the blood-inked sketches left behind by the long-dead Orc shaman, picking
out bits of Many-Arrows lore here and there among the pages. He read of
something called the Ettin Axe of Uruth , a long-lost relic of renown
among the Orc tribes of the north . He frowned
as he examined at length the smudged and ash-marred tracing of some sort of Elvish
heraldry, dutifully copied down by the dead shaman. Ten years of calligraphy
exercises and still I cannot decipher this, he thought as he absently
rubbed his knuckles where a tutor’s switch had once rapped repeatedly as he
took his childhood comportment lessons. "Your secrets will be mine, orcish elf smudge!" He
muttered and then stifled a yawn. Shrugging his shoulders, he slowly pitched
forward until he was asleep on the desktop, face-down on the blotter. He began
to snore, the occasion ashen cinder blowing from his nostrils. The adventurers dreamed. Siegfried and Bob found themselves standing in the midst of
a vast saltwater marsh that stretched for miles in all directions. A cold wind
blew towards the coastline far to the west. To the north, they could make out a
roadway that snaked across the swamp, elevated here and there on earthen berms
and lengths of crumbling stone bridgework. Before them, the solemn ruin of a once-great tower rose high
above the stagnant pools and waterlogged tree stands, its base a square keep
that sat upon an escarpment overlooking the roadway. The main tower sat on the
eastern corner of the square and was over seventy feet high. Siegfried and Bob
flew unbidden towards the tower, circling it in increasingly tighter orbits
until they alighted upon the tower’s upper reaches, which time and trouble had
opened to the cloud-ridden skies above. The skeletal frame of the tower’s
pinnacle reminded them both of observatories they’d seen in their youths. In the centre of the chamber, balanced on rotting rain-swollen
floorboards, was a clockwork contraption that looked part-telescope,
part-orrery. Built of lengths of polished wood with heavy brass supports, the
device was a mad collection of crystal mirrors and intricate gears. It was
pointed towards the mountain range that loomed to the north east. Their viewpoint shifted to the device’s eyepiece. Peering
through the device, Bob and Siegfried could see navigational markings etched on
a crystal viewpane that, when properly aligned, allowed the user to take an
angular sighting of the mountain range, plotting a course between the tallest
peaks. As they looked at the mountains, they saw billowing red
clouds engulf the peaks, the mountain slopes running red with blood. A stench
of rot and decay was carried on the wind toward them… Erwen tossed and turned fitfully as he dreamt that the
topiary guardians of House Nidris were withering under a fast-acting degenerative
blight. Trike the topiary triceratops bellowed and wheezed in agony, calling to
the druid for aid… Varien dreamed that a murderous horde of orcs were overrunning
a small village in a deep valley, the cries of the townspeople to their Unseen
Protector going unanswered as the axes and mauls swung ceaselessly… The adventurers awoke to the sound of a woman’s scream. Varien leaped from his bed, hurriedly donning his armour. The commotion was
coming from the master bedroom, right next door to his room.
Siegfried sat bolt upright with a snort; a sheet of paper glued to his face
with drool. Shadow growled in his sleep, one leg kicking spasmodically. “What was that?” Bob asked through a yawn as he sat up in bed. Alec didn’t have time to button his shirt over his torso as
he grabbed the Sword of Trevelyan. “Nothing good,” he hissed to his brother. Varien threw upon his bedchamber door and charged into the
hallway, as Siegfried stepped deftly out a few doors down. The two nodded to
each other, and Varien rushed the heavy doors of the master bedroom. There was
an unnerving reddish light peeping out from the spaces around the doorframe. Varien grasped the door handle and recoiled in agony as a
bolt of scorching fire ran through his arm. “You what?” he cursed, and shouldered
the door open. He crashed into a scene of interrupted invasion. In the
centre of the room was a king-sized bed on a raised dais. Lying across it on
his back, smoke rising from a scorching wound, was Vees Windriver, the fire
genasi bodyguard. Cowering on the floor, having fallen or being thrown from the
bed, was Lady Sala Nidris, clad only in a shimmering shift that did little to
hide her dark-skinned curves. She was holding her son Zan in her arms. Varien tried not to think about the Nidris family’s sleeping
arrangements. Moving to surround her were several intruders wearing red
and black studded leather catsuits, their heads covered in blood-red cloth
cowls. The men held red-hot pokers, which they brandished menacingly. Their leader was a Tiefling dressed in similar red finery,
who was pointing a wicked-looking hand crossbow at Lady Nidris. The Tiefling scowled at Varien in annoyance. “Can’t you guards
give the lady of the house a moment’s peace?” he sneered. “She has business to
attend to!” The Tiefling turned back to Lady Nidris. “Now, where were we? Oh
yes.” His goat-like eyes narrowed. “Give us the boy!” he shrieked at the
noblewoman. Varien, unaccustomed to being summarily dismissed, shook his
head and fixed the Tiefling with a hard stare. “I’m no mere guard,” he
bellowed. “And your business is now with me, not the Lady!” The Tiefling’s eyes rolled sideways. “Fine,” he shrugged. He
waved his crossbow at his underlings. “Minions, dispose of this interloper!” The two underlings nearest Varien turned, their faces
twisting in murderous glee. In unison, they dropped their branding irons, which
the paladin now noted hung on chains of hellfire. The chained weapons began to
swing. Alec and Bob exited their room. To their immediate right,
the door to Siegfried’s bedchamber was silently opening. Instead of the half-orc, it was a pair of leather-clad, hood-cloaked
intruders, their faces hidden behind impassive ivory masks that shone eerily in
the moonlight that filtered in through the villa’s skylights. Siegfried took note of the intruders, who would have attempted
to murder him in his sleep had he chose to use his own bedroom. He then heard
the sound of steel-on-steel in the room next to him and decided the Trevelyan
brothers were capable of defending themselves. That was when two more masked intruders padded up the stairs
from the main floor. Their long knives glittered in the moonlight. Their
expressionless masks gazed at the Trevelyans, then at Seigfried, one of the intruder’s
heads tilting like a dog, and the pair struck out silently towards the
half-orc. Siegfried sighed. It was going to be a long night. Lady Nidris recovered her composure, pulled a length of bedsheet
over her nearly bare breasts, and intoned an invocation. In an instant, a
circular wall of magical stone fell into place brick by brick, walling off her
corner of the room, separating the intruders from her, her son, and her prone
bodyguard. Varien cursed as the intruders wound their chains around
him. He lost his footing and felt himself being dragged forward. His attackers
pressed their branding irons down on him. Varien clenched his teeth as the
red-hot brands sizzled against him, his armor providing little protection
against the unnatural heat. Bob threw himself into action, twinning a shocking grasp
spell that dazzled both intruders while Alec followed up with a mighty greenflame
blade attack. Their targets uttered not a word or gasp of pain as they
withstood the brothers’ coordinated attacks, but fought back with deft stabs of
their blades. Bob’s attacker was slimmer than their companion, and got their blade
through his defenses. He gasped as the pain of his stab wound was eclipsed by
the cold quicksilver agony of poison. Siegfried was able to cast a shield spell that
deflected the assassins’ blades, which bounced off his invisible armor. Before he could return their assault with one of his own,
there was the sound of an eagle’s cry followed by that of shattering glass as a
cloaked form dropped from the roof to make a perfect three-point landing on the
hallway hardwood. The newcomer stood to his full height, a quarterstaff making
a slow, practiced rotation in his right hand. He brushed glass splinters from
his shoulder as he regarded the masked intruders with a frigid look. “The hour is late for a social call,” the stranger intoned. “But
it is true what they say: the early bird catches the worms.” His quarterstaff lashed out to connect with the first masked
man’s head, and then the newcomer followed through with a heel kick that brained
the second attacker, sending him reeling. A flurry of blows followed, pummelling
the first masked intruder back into the plaster wall. Siegfried gave a respectful nod to the stranger; whoever he
was, he was not the half-orc’s enemy, at least not until the intruders had been
decisively dealt with. Siegfried spun on his heel and charged into the master
bedroom. “Theryn, is that you?” Bob called from down the hallway. Theryn Hellvalor turned and executed a quick bow before
driving his right heel back into the forehead of the stunned attacker. There
was a crack of plaster as the man was thrown back against the wall. “Indeed,” Theryn said. The masked attacker lurched from the ruined wall panel, a hairline
crack disturbing the smooth surface of his ivory mask. His blade flicked out
and punctured an artery in Theryn’s leg. “Damn,” Theryn said as blood spurted from the wound. “You
strike like the scorpion, but I shall still crush you beneath my foot.” He proceeded to lay a second beating down on the masked
attacker, even as the walls and ceiling splattered with sprays of his
lifeblood. Bob and Alec defended themselves against the blades of their
enemies. Bob yelped as an attacker opened a deep gash along his flank. Alec growled and attacked ferociously in his brother’s
defence. He ran the larger of the two intruders through once, and then once
more. The attacker sagged back in the throes of death, but as he
stumbled away bleeding, there was a pop and the man disintegrated into dust
before their eyes. “Bit weird,” Alec said through his rage. Theryn whirled his quarterstaff but the attacker dodged his strike. “This seems familiar,” Theryn sighed, but followed through
with an unarmed strike and a flurry of blows. The second attacker’s blade nicked out and widened the mortal
wound on his leg. Theryn shuddered and staggered, feeling his strength ebbing with each arterial
spurt of blood. “This also seems familiar,” Bob called to the monk, using a dance
to throw a healing word at Theryn, closing his wound. Theryn sighed again. “The prodigal son receives no respect
from his brother,” he muttered. He proceeded to beat the two attackers back
down until they lay prone at his feet. In Lady Nidris’s bedroom, Varien grumbled as he got to his
feet. There was the sound of chains rattling as his enemies circled. The paladin
held up a gauntlet and the minions hesitated. “A moment, please,” Varien said. Then he straightened up,
cast mantle of flame and activated his Helm of the Regent’s Glare .
Rays of radiant and fire damage fired from the eye slits of his winged helm,
zapping the Tiefling. “Agh!” The Tiefling screeched as he took the full force of
the magic rays. He stumbled back, then spider climbed the walls of the master
bedroom until he was up in the rafters. “You useless imps!” he called to his minions. “Can’t you
just kill a man when I command it?” He aimed his crossbow at Varien, but the
paladin activated his divine blessing and the shot went wide. Siegfried somersaulted past Varien to land in the centre of
the room. Spying the Tiefling, he fired a barrage of eldritch blasts at
the Tiefling. The agile creature dodged most of the warlock’s attacks. " Another houseguest? Appalling!” The Tiefling slapped his horned
forehead in disbelief. Varien drew Fiendsbane from his scabbard and raised his shield
as the attackers brought their branding irons down in quick successive stabs. “Useless bricks of brimstone!” the Tiefling howled. “It is
so hard to find good help these days!” He uttered a string of black speech and
pointed to the master bedroom’s hearth, which glowed menacingly with unearthly
flames. “Oh, Jezebel!” the Tiefling called in singsong. A creature resembling a horribly burned humanoid unfolded
itself from the burning embers. Limbs stretched out to unnatural lengths and its
charred claws clacked as it opened and closed its scarred fists. “UNCOOKED FLESH!” the creature cackled, hurling itself at
Varien. “A seared devil!” Fiendsbane hissed in Varien’s ears. “Put
it down before I put it down!” With a flash, Varien raised Fiendsbane to the heavens. “You’d
better stay BACK!” he called as he brought the sword down on the seared devil.
The creature shrieked in agony as the blade ripped a radiant gash down the
length of its scarred, burned body, and Varien pumped as much divine smite
as he could into the follow-through. There was a sudden explosion of choking ash that Varien and
Siegfried managed to withstand. The ash cloud cleared, and Jezebel was no more. “No!” the Tiefling shouted. “My sweet Jezebel!” His next
words were cut short by another round of eldritch blasts from Siegfried. From behind the protective wall of stone, there was a
booming sound. Siegfried nodded; Lady Nidris was likely taking further protective
steps to get her beloved Zan out of harm’s way.
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From around the edge of the magical stone wall crept another
intruder, his face covered by a hooded cloak. On his shoulders sat a small
winged imp that whispered infernal secrets into his ear. The attacker raised
his hands and began to sketch the outlines of a nightmare.