Previously...
Well rested and re-equipped, Bujilli contemplates breakfast...
A knock at the door interrupted Bujilli in mid-response. Leeja laughed as she opened the door. It was Jumdrim, the major domo in charge of Idvard's Keep.
"Ah; good, good--you're both awake and dressed."
"How is Idvard?" Bujilli dropped all thought of breakfast. He intended to go see his friend, if only to let him know that he had been avenged, that the Unchild would never bother him again.
"He is recovering, despite the vicious toxins that despicable thing left behind when it bit his eye out. I sincerely hope you dealt with it most sternly--"
"I unraveled the spell that gave it form. Then I decapitated the shamaness-sow that created it. Then I wiped out most of the Grunters, except for a few who escaped. I apologize for that--I was too tired to pursue them after killing all the others."
Jumdrim stared dumbfounded at Bujilli. At first he wasn't sure if he should believe the half-almas, then something clicked for him and he knew that Bujilli was not joking.
"Ahem. I see. Well, for what it is worth, I thank you for attending to the matter. I am sorry it did not work out as you had hoped, but better we discovered their ulterior motives before they were in a position to do us grievous harm. If they had been allowed to take over the defenses below...I shudder to think what might have happened."
"It's done. Will you take us to see Idvard?"
"Of course--he has invited you both to breakfast. There is much to be discussed."
"Lead on then." Bujilli took Leeja by the hand and started walking.
"And I have been tasked with bringing along the mirror as well..."
"Fine. Bring it along then."
Meanwhile...
Three heads. One completely lacking any eyes. The wolf was another damned prodigy, a sport birthed out of season. A very bad omen. Korzid nudged the carcass with his boot. He signed for the apprentices to roll the wretched thing into the lime pit. Its flesh was forfeit, but the bones would fetch a good price, so long as his permit was still good. Seemed like every other week there was a new regulation or provision, accompanied by another stamp, seal or signature required for his working papers, and another fee. Always another fee. Administrative costs were really cutting into his profits more and more. He considered seeking out another line of work, but there just wasn't much call for a vampire hunter these days, and it wasn't like he knew much more than how to hunt and how to kill things respectable people would as soon avoid. He felt a passing twinge of kinship with the wolf-thing. They were both unwelcome, unlovely things people paid to make go away. It was a shitty way to live, but he could do worse. This being Wermspittle, he knew it could always get worse...
Idvard was curled-up in a large, over-stuffed chair at the head of the great table. Bortho sat at his right hand, Zutissa next to him. Both wore baggy robes that covered-up most of the bandages wrapped around their limbs and torsos. Zutissa did not look up. Rilma the keeper of the arsenal and skinny Eloi girl sat next to one another on the other side of the table, a few places down. Rilma nodded solemnly as Bujilli and Leeja entered. Set apart from them was Shael and the cuckoo girl. Shael was a bloody mess, her entire left side was a mass of cracks, rips and criss-crossing wounds. The Cuckoo was immobilized and silenced by a spell that curled about her like overlapping bands of azure light that cast no shadows.
"Thank you for attending to..." Idvard gestured painfully as he let his voice trail off.
"I wish things had turned out otherwise."
"As do we all."
Two drones brought the heavy old mirror into the room. The wheels on its heavy cabinet squeaked and squealed as they moved it into position at the foot of the great table. A group of Spirks wearing green and white tunics followed Jumdrim into the room, each one carrying a platter, bowl or basket loaded with various dishes including apples, pears and in some cases berries, each as large or larger than a person's head.
"We've had some success in reclaiming the old orchards. With a bit of luck, we should re-take the inner gardens as well within the next couple of days. Hunting parties and foragers have had mixed results so far, but there are signs of wild sheep across the river, so we may be able to become a bit more self-sufficient, hopefully before next Winter." Jumdrim bowed with a flourish then chased the kitchen servants out.
"The Well-Shafts in the immediate vicinity have been secured and the work detail has been repairing the old grates, with a few modifications to help deter unwanted intrusions. Repairs to the he outer walls are completed, so I've tasked the drones with re-digging and clearing-out the old moat and secondary trenches, making sure to set fresh spikes in the perimeter pits and otherwise refurbishing those defenses. All traces of the gas used by the Grunters have been rendered inert and one of my people is working on a method of abating or dispersing gas attacks based on techniques used by the Pruztian Chemical Korps." Rilma addressed her report to Bortho who acknowledged it with a curt nod.
"A scouting party returned from down below." Bortho stared at Bujilli; "You wiped them all out. The scouts suggested sending in flamethrowers to incinerate the remains."
"Three or four escaped. I set-up a barrier of sorts to prevent them coming back, but it is only a temporary measure. You'll need to see to the defenses down there--"
"Go To The Mirror, Boy!"
Bujilli shook his head, not sure if anyone else heard it. They were all staring at him. Leeja was halfway out of her chair; this time she had heard Hedrard's voice as well.
"With your permission?" Bujilli drew out the key and walked over to the baroque old mirror.
Idvard waved him on.
He unlocked the shutters and drew back the interior curtains to reveal the mirror within the cabinet.
It looked perfectly normal. Then it rippled slightly. Bujilli looked more closely. Something was approaching from the other side, from within the mirror. It looked like some sort of bird, perhaps an owl of some sort.
The mirror rippled again. The ancient glass glistened like the surface of a deep, cold mountain lake.
The owl fluttered forth from the mirror and sank its talons into the great table...but it wasn't an owl, not entirely, nor was it completely a girl...
"Sritta!" Bujilli recognized her as one of Hedrard's servants.*
"Hello Bujilli. My Mistress asks for leave for her to enter this place."
Bujilli looked at Idvard who was watching the owl-faced girl very closely. She wore a red surcoat over her form-fitted armor etched in anatomical diagrams. The glyph embroidered there was the same symbol etched into the amulet Bujilli carried. Idvard nodded assent once he recognized it.
Sritta bowed gracefully then turned and sent a small ball of green flame back through the mirror.
"She has been trying to reach you for some time now." She scolded Bujilli playfully.
"I know...but I've been busy..."
"Yes. Of course. Like most mortals, you assume that you are oracular in your ignorance and stubbornly plodded along without availing yourself of the advice of someone more capable of seeing farther ahead. Happens all the time."
Before he could reply four women in red robes wearing stylized owl masks stepped through the mirror and took up positions on either side. Six tall red-headed adolescents wearing feather-cloaks and taloned-gloves followed and stepped into place next to the women. Bujilli thought he recognized at least one of them from the mob of followers who'd attached themselves to Hedrard back at the Gormenstille.
Hedrard entered the room. Her hair was lustrous blood red and though she remained a hag, she also radiated a tempestuous vitality that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, among other things.
"Welcome to my humble abode." Idvard tried to sit up but couldn't--the loss of his third eye made him too dizzy, too disoriented.
"I had hoped to arrive sooner...before...well, no matter; I am here now and I will do what I can." She gestured and a healer went to Idvard and began attending to his wound. The second healer went to Bortho, the third went to Zutissa, the fourth one went to Shael.
"You've been a very busy boy, haven't you?" Hedrard smiled at Bujilli.
He spluttered, unable to put words together.
"Yes, yes, I know; you're overcome by your hormones and all that. Males are so vulnerable to that sort of thing. Back in the day that might even have been entertaining, but right now it's annoying, so get over it. We've got work to do and not much time to spare."
"Work?"
"Yes. We're going to fix the mess you made down below before things get any worse."
"I'm not sure--"
"Leeja. Take him by the hand and lead him after me. My people will attend your friend Idvard and you two can give him a full report on everything once we've gotten things under control. I'll leave two of my personal guard behind to protect him in case anything comes up while we're busy."
Leeja took Bujilli by the hand but she hesitated.
"You do trust me, don't you?" Hedrard grinned at her.
"I do." Bujilli found his voice, even if it cracked like he was going through puberty all over again.
"Good. Oh--we'll need this I think." Hedrard made another gesture and Idvard's blackened, battered eye the Unchild had bitten right out of his skull floated up from the table and followed her like a levitating lap dog.
"Lead the way then." She nodded to her guards who immediately took up their places on either side of her. Sritta followed behind them.
None of Bortho's people were at their station by the valve-gate. Surely someone would have been set there to keep watch over the valve-gate. Bujilli would speak to Bortho about this once they got back.
Hedrard's guards opened-up the valve-gate leading to the section of tunnels the Grunters had tried to claim. Two took up station inside the valve-gate and the other two took up position just outside the station. Sritta brought up the rear.
"How lovely." Hedrard regarded the dead beetle-thing; "Waste not, want not."
She walked through the scattered debris of the ruined camp as tough the corpses and body-parts were party decorations to be swept-up after some unruly celebration. Leeja clasped his hand more tightly than before. Bujilli strode through the carnage numbly. He didn't hear the faint grumble of something foul and twisted that had taken root where Talzag's tent-nest had been.
Black tendrils spread out from the blood-spattered and collapsed nest of filthy carpets, tapestries and rugs. Tiny little filaments coiled and wound their way from one severed head to a cadaver to another linking them all together.
IDRASHIG VOAUTH DRUT VOGGA!
The voice shrieked through his mind, leaving his nose bleeding and his eyes feeling bruised.
"Silence!" Hedrard commanded.
The voice stopped cold.
Sritta placed a hand on his shoulder to help steady him. Her other hand was on Leeja's shoulder. She had a bloody nose as well.
"What is this?" He knew it wasn't a Fungal Tyrant...
"You unraveled the shamaness-sow's spell; a cancer-working. Then you left it lying in the midst of her accumulated personal power right in the middle of her nest, not to mention all the spilled blood and corpses liberally sprinkled about the place. What did you think was going to happen?"
"I didn't think..."
"No. You didn't. But you came here to learn, so now you're going to learn how to clean up your mess."
"What do I need to do?"
"First thing, you both can drag that beetle-carcass closer. I think we'll add it to the mix. That ought to be interesting. Oh, if it's too heavy to lug around, then hack it to bits and bring the pieces over to me here. In fact, that would probably be better."
The dead beetle-thing wouldn't budge. He estimated it weighed at least half a ton, if not more. It took more than an hour to hack the thing into pieces they could each carry.
Hedrard busied herself gathering up the farthest-flung bits and pieces, piling them all up in a macabre mound of flesh and bone and other things. Sritta played a sprightly tune on her silver flute that caused all the splattered blood and gore to froth and bubble and slither towards the pile her mistress was building. Once the bulk of the beetle-thing was transported, Sritta used her flute to move the rest into its proper place.
"Do you know that these people, whom you call 'Grunters' have a name for themselves?"
"No. I've only ever heard them called Grunters or pig-things."
"They call themselves 'Kudrakelvojavig.' It means 'other people's devils.' They are more like a type of infection, a cancerous presence that wears piggish flesh. Those things that we see as being Outermost can sometimes become Innermost, nightmares can take root in meat and bone and the horrors of the old worlds have followed us into the new places."
"So do we burn this? Will that end it? Or do we need to banish it somehow?"
"You can burn it, but that won't end it. You can try to contain it, but your hold over it will fade and diminish over time. You could banish it, but it will then wait patiently along the perimeter you demarcate. Neither is a very viable solution. I would advise you to try something else."
Bujilli looked at the mound. Scores of tiny black fibers slithered over and around all the dead bodies, working their way deeper and deeper into the mass of mingled Grunter and beetle-thing parts. It reminded him of something he'd seem once before, when he had been very young. Back in his Uncle's yurt. It was something that Ahtrishka had whispered to them one night when his uncle had been attempting to dismember and dismantle a demon that had been sent to assassinate him in his sleep.
'You can cut and cut and cut all you like but you'll always be able to split any remaining piece into two smaller pieces. Even when you get down below the threshold of matter, anything you can perceive can be reduced or broken in half. You can always break things down and we love you for it.'
His uncle had pitched a terrible fit that night. He raged and howled and cursed and kept hacking the would-be assassin into increasingly smaller bits until finally he collapsed and the pieces evaporated in the morning sunlight. all the while Ahtrishka had smiled at him from behind the bars of her cage and let him fuss and fume. She took delight in tormenting her captor. She also kept an eye on Bujilli and had delicately placed her index finger to her lips so he wouldn't share the secret with his uncle, for she could see, she knew that Bujilli understood what she had been saying. That had been one of her games, answering his uncle in such a way that Bujilli understood what she was saying, but never
Division, destruction isn't the answer.
"Transformation. We need to transform this stuff into something else...something useful..."
"Excellent. Now come over here and do as I do--you too young lady--it's about time you both learned that there's much more to sorcery than just memory-monopolizing spells."
Red light and blood. They matched their wills and their imaginations against the horrid cancerous thing that dwelt deep within the tissues of the Grunters. At first it fought against them, afraid that they were trying to prevent it from reforming, reshaping the corpses and gore into a fresh new body. By the time it realized what they were actually doing, it was too late. Scores of dismembered and dead Grunters. The lingering traces of the Unchild. Beetle-pieces. Idvard's ruined eye. All the weird bric-a-brac Talzag had accumulated over the course of her career. All of it was superamalgamated into a seething mass of cells and structures that they took turns shaping, molding, transforming into something completely new and never before seen in this or any other world.
After what felt like many long, demanding hours it was done. Bone-weary, soaked in perspiration and mentally drained they shuffled back into the dining room. Someone had shut and re-locked the cabinet of the mirror. The healers were still working on the wounded.
Hedrard sat down at the table next to Bujilli and Leeja.
"So...about your Keep's defenses down below..."
"Yes?" Idvard looked up from his seat where he was still curled-up, though now his bandages were gone and a pink-skinned new eye was growing into place like the bud of a flower in Spring.
"You'll see when your eye has fully healed. We three took the liberty of setting a watch over the central entrance and the four lateral valve-gates and the shaft-way that leads farther downward. You'll be the first to know about any intruders and the defenders we've put into place down there all answer to you directly. You'll need to practice a bit, get used to managing them all, and I have someone here who can help you with that process." Sritta bowed and sat down beside Idvard.
"Thank you..." Idvard turned to let the healer work on his new eye.
"You're welcome. We can discuss matters of remuneration and recompense later, once you're healthy. Maybe you'd like to draft-up one of your contacts, like the one you have with my young friends here."
"A sound suggestion..."
"I thought that might appeal to you, being a lawyer and all..."
"All the lawyers were killed--"
"No. Most of them were killed, executed during the Midwive's Rebellion. A few of you survived. Don't worry--I won't tell anyone outside of this room. My people won't say anything, and you need to be honest with your security staff. Claiming this Keep will draw attention. You'll attract enemies, some of which will be very good at digging around in your past in order to find something to use against you. But that's not my concern. You're covered by the provisional amnesty we've declared in Shael's absence. I decided to come here and to lend a hand because we need you working with us."
"Who? Who do you represent?"
"The Academy. We want you to accept a position on the Board of Regents."
That's when the shutters exploded off of the mirror-cabinet and a group of Blemmyes roared into the room waving flamberges and war-hammers...
What should they do next?
You Decide!
* We first met Sritta in Episode 53.
Synchronocitor Status: Fully Recharged.
Roll for Initiative!
Someone please roll 1d6 for 1) Bujilli, 2) Leeja, 3) Hedrard, 4) Idvard, 5) Bortho & Zutissa, 6) Everyone else. The Blemmyes receive a 4...so beat that.
There are 2d4 Blemmyes attacking through the mirror. Anyone want to roll to see how many there are?
If someone wants to roll on the Monster Reaction Table on p. 52 of Labyrinth Lord (2d6), there is a chance that the Blemmyes aren't immediately hostile, but may only have taken a wrong turn or perhaps they are fleeing from something else...
Most likely violence is likely imminent--so if that''s the case, should Bujilli use a specific spell or make use of a particular weapon? Or do you think he ought to flee the scene or get away from these sneak attackers? Or should Bujilli & Leeja attempt to protect anyone in particular? Is there a better option or something else they might consider doing? Let me know what you think, after all--You decide.
So what do you think Bujilli & Leeja ought to do next?
You Decide!
