After a quick, heated confab, and a quick assessment of where the boots above might be standing, our heroes decided on a plan. Grignr lead the way up the spiral staircase, axe in hand. Francois stalked after, warily, followed by Declan and Asphodel.
A handful of steps up the wrought-iron stairs — with no further sound from the bootsteps above — Grignr looked up over the threshold of the next floor.
From below, the others heard a low, male voice say,
“Well, it’s about time.”
The speaker was a sour-faced humanoid casually leaning against a table, black-armored and black-clad except for silvery, shimmery boots. Beyond him, in the far corner of the room, was a hulking orc in a floor-length robe. But what dominated Grignr’s attention was a naked humanoid suspended upside-down from the rafters.
The looming speaker smirked, his moustache and goatee curling. “It took you long enough!”
Grignr ducked down to speak to the others and said in a quick, low voice, “orc-mage in the corner!” and hurled himself up the stairs, axe raised. Frank quickly followed.
In the melee that ensued, Grignr and Frank viciously traded blows with the shocked, black-clad fighter as the “mage” drew a nasty-looking scythe from his belt and raced to attack Declan. Asphodel looked for a way to circle both battles and cast a spell.
In moments, all were bloodied. The fighter seemed unstoppable, trading blows with Grignr and struggling to evade Frank’s powerful jaws. Asphodel skirted the fighting and quickly found a clear line of sight to the orc. As Declan warded off the enormous orc’s swinging strikes, Asphodel flicked her fingertips and spoke a single word. At once, a flash of light exploded in the orc’s face. He shrieked, clutching at his eyes. In that moment, Declan’s short sword left a messy gash in the orc’s belted robe.
Just as the buzz of spellwork left her fingertips, Asphodel saw a curious thing: on the floor beneath the hanging figure, the air began to shimmer. Within moments, as the air rang with the grunts and clangs of armed combat, she saw what looked like a small, shimmering capuchin monkey resolve from thin air.
Almost as soon as Asphodel realized what the ghostly animal was, before she could cry out in alarm, the thing leaped forward and clasped its jaws on the orc’s thick leg.
The orc screamed as the shimmery monkey bit through to bone.
As if spurred by the noise of the dying orc, and fumed at the fighter’s persistence, Grignr raged. All at once his axe swung as freely and as wildly as a beech twig, whistling over Frank’s head. He growled and spat like a mad thing, hurling blows and bending the black-clad fighter backwards.
In the corner, the orc fell, heavily, the tiny monkey still clinging to its leg. Declan watched him fall with suprise and relief. Seemingly in response, weaving out of reach of Frank’s snapping jaws, the fighter surprised everyone by running for the window… and leaping through it, shattering the thin-paned glass and sending sharp fragments flying.
Everyone stood amazed for an instant, listening to Declan and Grignr heave for breath in the sudden silence.
Grignr ran to the window and looked down; but there was no sign of the fighter’s armored form.
It took a few moments for the adventurers to regain their wits after the melee finished. Declan looked at his short sword, newly smeared with black goo, and fought queasiness. Frank, on the other hand, his muzzle red with human blood, licked his lips with a look of satisfaction.
The shimmery monkey acted first, leaping off of the fallen orc’s ruined leg and scampering up the hanging body’s chest. Clutching the almost-translucent white form, it hung upside-down and pawed gently at the humanoid’s face. In response, the humanoid drew in a breath.
He was alive! Asphodel and Grignr ran to the humanoid’s side and — Grignr still breathing heavily from the fight — cut him gently down.
Brushing the table’s contents roughly onto the floor, they laid the body down. The small monkey rode along on the broad, white chest, still touching and pawing the form’s still features. A wide, shallow gash curved across his neck, and numerous small cuts and burns dotted his bruised flesh. He was alive, but dying.
Asphodel quickly performed first aid to stop his decline. As she did so, the small monkey shimmered briefly and then winked out, disappearing like a blown candleflame. After a few moments, the humanoid’s shallow breathing returned, and he seemed stable. Grignr covered him in his own cloak, tucking the thick-furred leather under the man’s chin.
The strange injured form taken care of, for now, the adventurers took care of themselves. Asphodel healed Grignr, then performed first aid for Declan and Frank. They then proceeded to settle in to rest and keep watch over their new charge through the night.
MORNING
As day dawned, the sun shone in bright through the cross-paned windows. Asphodel glanced at the prone form on the table, and was surprised to that his eyes were open, looking at the ceiling. Straightaway, Asphodel went to his side and laid her hands gently on his chest. She concentrated.
In moments, the humanoid’s white skin turned from pearly to rose, and he drew in a large, full breath. Health mostly restored, he appeared fairly broad and well-muscled. Grignr took another, now appraising, look at the man’s scars.
“Yer a fighter, then?”
The man started, shifting the table, as though he were unused to voices. From his position
“No fighter,” his voice scraped and caught, and suddenly he was racked with coughs that shook the table. Asphodel frowned, and quickly rummaged in her shoulder-bag.
Grignr flat-handed the man’s back, awkwardly, trying not to break his ribs, while Asphodel produced a nugget of gold-colored stuff from her bag. The thing seemed spangled with little stars. The man glanced at it, mid-cough, reached for it quickly and popped it into his mouth. Grignr quit his pounding, as the man’s coughing quickly subsided.
Declan peered over Asphodel’s shoulder. “Some kind of magical root?”
The druid met the man’s eyes and noted that he hadn’t asked. He smiled, gratefully, as she replied. “It’s candied ginger. When I get enough water in him, he can chew it up and it will go all syrupy. Ought to help him come up from malnourishment as well.”
Declan raised his eyebrows and glanced at the man, who nodded, weakly.
“Not a fighter, then,” Asphodel said. “A druid?”
“Cleric,” he croaked, and accepted Grignr’s proffered waterskin.
The broad cut at the man’s throat had not healed as well as Asphodel expected. As he raised the skin, it flashed bright pink.
“Bastian,” the man said finally, in a painful rasp. “Bastian Pelors-man. Where are my friends?”
Asphodel’s eyebrows raised. “Friends? You mean there are more of you?”
INTRODUCTIONS
Declan hopped down the spiral stairs two at a time, and was gone a scant minute before returning with a ripped sheet. Grignr took it, scowled at its age and ripe condition, but proceeded to rip a hole in the center. Asphodel cut off a length of rope. Within a few moments, Bastian looked ridiculously like a fasting hermit. He grinned in spite of himself, and squared his shoulders.
“Thank you all. I’m ready.”
Grignrs eyebrows raised. “Ready? We’re not moving.”
Bastian stood up, shakily. “What do you mean? We have to save my friends! They might be anywhere! There’s a basement, you said?” He looked wildly from Grignr to Asphodel and back again. “The basement! They have to be there…”
“Along with twenty more like the ones who almost killed us. No.”
“Bastian,” Asphodel tried her best ‘calming the horses’ voice. “We can’t go after them until we’re ready. It would be worse for them if we died before we could find them. Listen to me, Bastian-“
“We’ve got to! We’ve got to! There’s no telling what-“
Grignr laid a massive hand on Bastian’s shaking shoulder. Startled, Bastian looked up at the half-orc. His shaking stilled, and he seemed to settle down a bit. There was a long silence.
Finally his brows furrowed, and he flexed his creaking knuckles.
“First thing in the morning, then? Once I’ve fully recovered?”
“Agreed,” said Grignr. Asphodel nodded solemnly, and Declan, unnoticed, brightened considerably. A dungeon meant treasure…
Asphodel had a thought. “Bastian, I don’t want to frighten you, but… right before you woke up there was a… I don’t know how to explain it. There was a monkey.”
Bastian grinned sudddenly, his reverie ended. He lifted his hands, and with a flourish like a street performer, he held them out, palms up, and peered into the space above them. With a SNAP of air expanding, a shimmery monkey appeared on Bastian’s hands. It peeked at the others, curiously, then cocked its head at Bastian, reached forward, patted his cheek. It was really too cute for words, and Asphodel couldn’t muster any. Bastian winked at her, and with a flip of his tail the monkey abruptly disappeared.
“He’s a summoned creature. I can do that once a day, if I’ve strength for it. I must have… well, I must have rallied for just a moment.”
“Why a monkey?” Grignr rumbled.
Bastian laughed. “Heavens, why not a monkey?”
THE MAP ROOM
With morning light streaming into the room and ribboning across the slate-tiled floor, and their charge healed, the adventurers turned their attention to the room’s contents.
Besides the thick, wood worktable that had held an unconscious Bastian, the rest of the furniture in the room seemed to have been piled haphazardly in the southwest corner of the room. A bed, chairs, a sofa, and three large bookshelves were piled there, with hundreds of leather-bound books dumped in between wood slats and cushions. Asphodel poked at the books, briefly assessing them to be histories and biographies of prominent generals, then returned to the papers and other objects newly scattered on the floor. Declan joined her.
[the book, which writhes]
Apart from the eerie book, Asphodel and Declan discovered a few useable quill pens, a few un-used pieces of good paper, and four wax-stoppered ink bottles. Three were filled with black ink, but one of the bottles appeared to contain a viscous, red fluid. Bastian grimaced at this, and rubbed the curving scar on his neck, thoughfully. Asphodel placed it quickly under a pile of loose paper.
Among these, the druid discovered two sorts of paper: on roughly 3/4 of the sheets, a looping and heavily-inked hand had penned notes in a language she did not speak. (Grignr, looking over her shoulder, noted that the script appeared similar to that on the black book’s cover, but no more.) On the rest of the filled paper, page after page, an unskilled writer had penned solid, unbroken lines of text in Common. Asphodel eyed the notes, distastefully, and rolled them into a tube for later study.
[more Bastian, mention of some history]
Asphodel had a thought, and returned to the messy pile of books in the corner. One of them caught her eye: a red-bound book titled, Wildmark and the War of Northern Aggression.
[the parapet, and the sizzling death of a black book]