Hello fellow fanfic fanatics, and welcome to "Shadowchasers: Shackled City"!
Now, before you say, "What the hell, Occam? The title I clicked on said "Shadowchasers: Quality of Life"! Well, to be brief, it's both.
See, as I have said many times, "Shadowchasers" has grown at a rate I never expected. When I first laid the groundwork for this franchise, critics were saying the Yu-Gi-Oh game was a flash-in-the-pan fad that wouldn't last past the next holiday season. (To be fair, of course, these same critics were saying the same thing about Pokemon, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and the website I originally posted these fics on is defunct.
After all the world building, it would seem a shame if I deserted the franchise entirely, but I started to feel I'd become a one-trick pony with a fic based on a card game and wanted to write something different. So, I decided to write a fic that would explore the Shadowchasers world without depending on the card game.
Now, don't everyone worry too much, because "Shackled City" will still have a few card battle duels here and there, but again, the overall fic will do its best to show more creativity.
Now, "Shackled City" is not one fic (at least I don't intend it to be) but rather several small ones. I expect "Quality of Life" to be about five or six chapters and will comprise Part One of an overall story. Fans of Shadowchasers might remember the three protagonists here, and I plan to have other familiar faces show up later, but not all at once. Should anyone else have favorites they want to see again, then by all means, make suggestions.
Now, I must give credit where credit is due. Much like "Shadowchasers: Torment", "Shackled City" is an adaptation of a previously published Dungeons and Dragons module. Fans old enough to remember Dungeon Adventures "Adventure Paths" might recognize the general theme of the plot, but I hope to have added enough originality to keep everyone guessing.
Thus, I would like to thank Jesse Decker, James Jacobs, Tith Leati, David Noonan, Christopher Perkins, Chris Thomasson, and Wizards of the Coast Overall for designing the city of Cauldron and its many bizarre characters, from which I was able to draw inspiration.
Now… Let's get started….
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Shadowchasers
Shackled City
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Lightning flashed amid a sky of blood-red clouds.
The armored knight stood before an ominous cathedral made of bones and black rock. The gothic-style was very much like the friendlier, hospitable churches the knight remembered, but if it had ever been such, it had been desecrated, cursed, and corrupted into a horrific place of debauchery, profanity, and blasphemy.
The knight made a swift kick, the doors crashing open inward. Darkness greeted the hero, along with screams, sobs, and demonic laughter.
The first step within was almost the knight's last, as the floor crumbled underneath; a quick lunge for the ledge saved the hero from tumbling into the dark abyss below. Scrambling upward, a click and a rush of air told the knight to dodge, doing so before razor-sharp blades embedded in the wall behind.
"Wisdom, Zeal, Honesty, Integrity, Discipline, Honor, and Loyalty. These are your staunchest allies, your most potent weapons against lawlessness and Evil."
The knight dashed across the dark hallway, even as blades swung from the ceiling and spires pierced upward through the floor. A spinning rotary blade blocked the entrance to the main sepulcher, but the knight still pressed on, timing a jump and diving through, tumbling into the larger room and leaping unto a fighting stance.
Curran.
In the center of the vast chamber, illuminated by candelabras that shrouded the temple's walls with flickering shadows, the Ebon Magician languished. Her hood and dress were torn and dirty, and her hands were shackled to the floor. Surrounding her was a pentagram with lit candles placed on every point. She sobbed softly.
She looked up a little, trembling as the knight approached. The knight slowly removed her helmet; her soft smile and gentle eyes wordlessly urged the Ebon Magician to calm herself…
...and then the pentagram disappeared, Curran with it. More fiendish laughter echoed through the chamber.
"Your foes see them as foreign terms. They know what these words mean, but not the truth behind them. To these villains, such words are naught but tools used to deceive and manipulate others."
A sickening flash of green light illuminated the room, and the knight saw the entire chamber in full. Corpses of all types had been crucified, nailed to the walls. Many were skeletal and some were only slightly decomposed, but many clearly met this grisly end only a day before. Some were human, some were Shadowkind, some were Duel Spirits, and many of them wore the same style armor the knight did.
She also saw the lord of this horrid domicile, the orchestrator of these atrocities. Seated on a throne at the far end was a muscular demon with a bestial face, crowned by huge, curving horns. Curran was at his feet, sobbing more than ever.
As the knight drew her sword, Reign-Beaux, Overlord of Dark World stood up to his full twelve-foot height, letting forth a bellow that shook the entire cathedral. The knight charged the fiend, plunging her sword into the foul beast's gizzard.
Nothing. Reign-Beaux didn't seem hurt in the least. She looked up to see him looking at her with a low, throaty chuckle.
In the next instant, his fist slammed into her chin, and an instant after that, his other fist met her jaw and she was knocked prone, skidding from him on her back. She looked up to see him yank the sword from his torso, then casually toss it aside as the wound quickly healed and his acidic blood reduced the weapon to a pile of sludge. She barely managed to roll to avoid his cloven hoof as he stomped down, cracking the floor in an attempt to crush her.
The knight spit on the ground, spitting up blood and a tooth. She looked up, and Reign-Beaux grunted in disgust, then lifted his right hand, producing his own weapon, a long military fork with a golden, serrated blade. He pointed it, unholy power coursing from his hands into the shaft, and then into the tips…
The knight was about to close her eyes and accept death… But then she realized he wasn't aiming for her.
Mustering strength she never realized she had, she leapt to her feet, dashing towards Curran and shielding her. Screams came from the knight and the Ebon Magician as the potent blow of dark magic ripped her armor apart.
"If you can master your fear, outsmart your enemy, and never yield, even to your own doubts, you will be changed forever."
She collapsed to her knees, the cruel demon's laughter ringing in her ears. Her hand closed around something as she struggled to get up. A shaft. A shaft of a weapon. She seized it, and energizing power flowed through her.
Grabbing hold of the Mace with both hands, she turned to face her foe again, even as Reign-Beaux now stood nearly twice as large as before. It didn't matter. She charged at him; his roar of bloodlust nearly drowned out by her own battlecry. The Mace swung, and the fork was torn from the demon's hands. Blow after blow followed, until the demon howled, and then crumbled into particles of fiery cinders and ash.
The knight fell on one knee; Curran staggered towards her, still crying a little, and hugged her gently.
"As a Hand of St. Cuthbert, you will find that Justice makes for a harsh master, but one you can make into your loyal servant. Wield it strong to defend the innocent and punish the guilty, but always temper it with mercy."
Nichole returned the hug and closed her eyes, as light slowly started to replace the darkness…
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Quality of Life
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Part One
Old Wounds
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BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ
The sound of her alarm clock ringing as it hit 7AM slowly brought Nichole to the waking world. She gasped a little, sat up, and felt her chest…
The dream, she thought.
No scars, no bleeding, she still had all her teeth, and she was wearing her pajamas. Not armor. It was the dream again, the dream she had every few weeks. It always took a few seconds of being awake before she was sure it hadn't been real. Still, with the relief that came with waking up, so too came a small amount of disappointment.
She slumped on her back again. She'd been having that dream for years. Curran wasn't always the one she had to rescue - often it was Pikeru, the Unhappy Maiden, or any of the Charmers - and Reign-Beaux wasn't always her foe - Dark Ruler Ha Des and Vennominaga were common - but those words… They had always remained constant. Donnie - as in, Donovan Sinclair, the founder of St. Cuthbert's House - had told them to her the day she was formally initiated. The day she swore her life and soul to the dogma of St. Cuthbert. It was amazing, really, that the guy in charge could make time to speak to lowly initiates as often as he did.
As she sat up, the morning sun streaming in the window of her room in the Chicago penthouse, she noticed something odd in the air. Something like…
Cinnamon?
She grabbed her bathrobe and followed the delicious smell into the kitchen. "Francis!" she exclaimed.
"Hey there, sunshine!" he said. The sizzling from the stove confirmed what she had noticed: cinnamon French toast. Along with bacon and scrambled eggs.
"Since when do you make breakfast?" asked Nichole. She sat at the table, with a suspicious smirk on her face. "Where's Bartholomew?"
"At the dentist, remember? Dugan went with him, you know, cause 'misery loves company'? But don't worry, I got this."
"Any particular reason you're making that?" asked Nichole. She hadn't had cinnamon French toast in years, not since she was twelve in fact….
"Don't worry, Marc didn't give me your mom's recipe." He piled the food onto a plate with a spatula. "He mentioned how much you like this, and I found this recipe online. Go on, try it, I'm sure your mom told you a few times that breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
Nichole sighed a little. She had, but usually "breakfast" when her mom was cooking was oatmeal or regular toast. Her cinnamon French toast was a luxury she and Marc had, at most, once a month. So much had happened in her life, it was hard to fathom that she was still young, still a "growing girl". Still, Francis' French toast seemed decent.
She made a snarky smile. "You know, I think you told me once that you'd never cook for any girl other than the one you intended to marry."
Francis coughed and choked. She turned towards a pile of envelopes on the table. "Is that the mail?" she asked.
He cleared his throat with a loud cough. "Yep, lesse. Phone bill, letter to 'Occupant', catalogue, letter from someone named Gregor."
This time, Nichole started to cough, and far more loudly and violently, and dropped her fork and napkin on the floor trying to stifle it.
"What, you okay?" asked Francis. Nichole took long gulps of her orange juice. "What?"
"Nothing, uh, just went down the wrong tube there." She grabbed the letter quickly, and her hand quivered.
"Who's Gregor?" he asked.
"Pen pal," she said quickly. Then she kissed him on the cheek with a quicker "Thanks for breakfast!" and rushed back into her room.
"Weird…" he muttered. He picked up the envelope, noting that the corner had a special Stamp of Delivery, a magical type of postage that could send a letter anywhere on the globe in under a day. No return address, however.
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Two hours later.
Nichole was at a PC in the den, holding her mobile phone to her ear with her shoulder while typing and alternating between four websites.
"No, no, Rick, I said 'Cauldron', you know, like 'Kettle'? I assume it's a town or something, but I don't know exactly where, there was no return address. No, I don't have a zip code either."
"Nichole, is there something you want to tell me?"
She froze as Francis came in, then sighed, regretting she didn't go to her own room to do this.
"Uh, Rick, I'll call you back," she said, and hung up the phone. "Nothing, Francis, Greg is an… old friend."
Francis almost laughed at the very old excuse which she could tell was hard to believe. He leaned over her shoulder and looked at the main screen and the pinned sites.
"Amtrak schedule, Chicago O'Hare schedule, travel agency…. And the international directory? Nichole, who is this guy? Is he in trouble?"
Nichole didn't answer but pushed the letter on the desk towards him. He picked it up, noting it had been handwritten with an old-fashioned quill pen.
Dearest Nichole,
I hope you and everyone at the soup kitchen remain in good health and that your standing in the Shadowchasers remains strong. Much has happened since I arrived in Cauldron all those years ago, far too much to explain in one letter.
I apologize for distancing myself for so long, and to my regret, I only contact you now as a request for aid, as my options are quickly becoming depleted. A crisis has come up where I fear innocents may be threatened, and possibly by worse fates than death. I realize that your vow to repay my favor was made at least partially in jest and under stressful conditions, but I hoped you could consider overlooking such details. I now need a favor from you. Badly.
If you choose to come, the tickets I have provided should allow you and three others with a minimum of fuss from the constabulary. Come as soon as possible, as I believe time is essential, I'll send someone you know to meet the train at the station for the next three days. Hopefully he can be there to greet you.
Honor and Glory to St. Cuthbert.
Gregory
"Rather… eloquent." Of course, he really had no idea what "eloquent" truly meant, but it seemed the right word.
"He always was," said Nichole, shaking her head. "These were in the letter."
The four odd tickets had "VIP Admit One: Entrance to Cauldron" written on each, again seemingly done with a quill pen. But the tickets themselves were not ordinary paper; Francis recognized it as the special parchment used to make scrolls. The ink seemed to be silver and almost fluid. He felt like he was holding something fragile and was nervous about ruining it.
"Looks like something you'd use to get on the Hogwarts Express."
"That's not a bad comparison."
Uh oh, busted… thought Nichole, at the all-too familiar voice behind them. She chuckled nervously as both turned around. "Uh, hi Dugan," she said with a smirk, "how's Bartholomew?"
The leader of the Chicago Shadowchasers branch was no less intimidating now than he was the day she'd met him, and the expression he had now seemed one of both concern and worry. He met with no objections as he reached forward and picked up the letter. "In his room holding ice against his mouth," he answered, "which gives ample time for some explaining. I thought you said Greg was in Afghanistan."
"You know the guy?" asked Francis.
"We met once."
"Dugan, seriously," Nichole stammered, "Donnie told us to tell you that. Well, he told us to tell that to anyone who asked. He gave -" She caught herself. As much as it pained her, there were some secrets of St. Cuthbert's House, she wasn't allowed to tell anyone, and she could sense Dugan knew she was trying to hide one.
"Gregory's own mentor was entrusted by Donnie with something valuable, and both were transferred. Donnie told most everyone that they went to do missionary work Afghanistan and told a few members - like me - that it was a ruse that we were supposed to maintain. I guess he figured it was a statement that would be hard for anyone to check. Donnie also said that he himself couldn't say where Donnie was going - 'wasn't his place' to do so, he claimed - but said Greg would tell me at, well -"
"Let me guess, he said 'Greg will tell you when the time is right'," added Francis. "Why are great fonts of wisdom always dispensed so cryptically?"
"It's a mystery, Francis," mumbled Dugan. He didn't turn to see whether they "got" the joke, he had pulled up a chair and was reading the letter carefully. "Four VIP tickets to Cauldron. Quite a pricey gift for someone bound by a vow of poverty…"
"What are you implying?" snapped Nichole.
"I'm implying that Greg either used his life savings to buy these tickets or he has a rich family he's kept secret. Four VIP tickets aren't something a church buys out of collection plate donations. That must be some favor you owe him."
"Hold on, hold on," started Francis. "Back up. Where is Cauldron?"
Dugan reached over and started typing on the computer until an atlas of Africa came on the screen, then he zoomed in for a larger view of the continent's east coast. "See here where Madagascar is?" He moved the mouse up until it was about an inch east of the line that marked 40 Longitude and an inch north of the equator. "It's around here."
"So, Cauldron is a town on an island?" asked Nichole.
"Technically, it's the capital city of a sovereign island state, which is also called Cauldron. It's not on many maps Mundane humans can access."
Nichole blinked twice, stunned by this revelation. "There's an entire country that only Shadows know about?"
Dugan nodded. "It's kind of like Backwater, but the folks there, well, they value privacy."
"Oh, I see," said Francis, with a snarky grin, "it's a private enclave full of rich snobs who don't like 'commoners' coming in and bothering them."
Dugan stood up. "In a manner of speaking, yes."
The two younger Shadowchasers could only think about this as Dugan went to a bookshelf with a specific book on his mind. "To paraphrase what Jalal told me about the place, Cauldron is 'something the world's most materialistic Quaker would love'. A place full of merchants, land barons, blue bloods, celebrity recluses, socialites, debutantes, and even some exiled royals. But very few actual royals."
"Is it some sort of tax haven?" asked Francis.
"You bet, but most folks who live there just want to be away from the rest of the world, because the rest of the world wants them to stay away, for one reason or another." He opened the book, showing a set of photographs of a strange city with odd buildings on an inward-curved slope, the architecture resembling early Victorian. "While it's got its fair share of Awares and 'regular' Shadows, many residents are the Shadowtouched type. Tieflings, aasimar, genasi, half-fey, and even rarer types. Doesn't surprise me much that St. Cuthbert's House has a presence there. Many Shadows try to go there simply out of a desire to be themselves. Simply visiting the place is difficult, and they're very picky about who they let live there."
"Well it's not like I want to move there, Dugan!" exclaimed Nichole. "Greg did tell me he wouldn't send something like this unless he was really in trouble, and -"
"I'm not saying 'no', Nichole, but for Greg to go to this much expense is just odd."
"Yeah, what did he do that you owe him a favor for?" asked Francis. "I take it this is bigger than promising to take out the garbage or -"
"He stopped me from killing myself."
The glum tone of Nichole's statement caused both her colleges to go silent. She took a deep breath and went on.
"I told you about how Sven came to our apartment after Marc was arrested, with his phony apology."
"Yeah, that was the night you started seeing the Shadows," added Francis.
'Sven's true form wasn't exactly the most welcoming sight," she said with a nod. "It only got worse from there. The next morning, I went down to Old Tape's store to get mom coffee, and I saw that Tape himself had pointed ears and violet skin. I'd known the man since I was five! Some nice folks noticed I was screaming and tried to comfort me; one of them was a gnoll!"
"Come on, Nichole, we all went through that. And a week later after you figured out how it worked, you spent a whole day writing apology letters, right?"
"A month later, Francis. It took me a little longer to, ahem, 'figure out how it worked'. See, Marc was in jail, and without him, mom didn't have much income. Sven made an 'offer', but it wasn't a request. I'd join him or starve. It was all too much. I decided to take a different option and went to a place to buy sleeping pills."
"Who the hell sells that to a 12-year-old?"
Nichole laughed nervously. "This was the Hive, Francis, it's pretty easy to get anything a kid shouldn't have if you've got enough cash. All you need to figure out is what stores have the least honest employees and what shifts they're on.
"But I was lucky that day. The store had a far more honest stock clerk who noticed and realized a twelve-year old girl had only one reason to buy them."
"Gregory?" asked Dugan.
Nichole nodded. "He was only an initiate of St. Cuthbert then, didn't have much authority or training, but he'd been a Good Samaritan all his life. And he was almost too late. I was unconscious when he found me, but while his skills with divine magic couldn't purge poison from someone's system, he could do enough to delay the onset until paramedics arrived. Not to mention, once the danger passed, he was someone who I could talk to without any doubts that he'd listen.
"That was how I learned how Shadows worked. I owe him my life."
There was dead silence in the room for a minute or two. Francis broke it: "You know, Dugan, it's not like Jalal doesn't owe us a vacation…"
Dugan sighed and shook his head.
"And Chicago has been pretty quiet lately," added Nichole. "Now that Kurt is back, you two could just call Sofia or Penelope and -"
"Like I said, I didn't say no," Dugan interrupted. Noticing Nichole's optimistic expression, he added, "YET." He looked at the tickets again. "Hard to doubt Gregory's urgency when he sends these."
"Uh, they're that expensive?" asked Francis.
"Flying first class to Brazil would be cheaper. Most of the time the only way to get to Cauldron is on a mercantile boat. Still, I should add that in the past, Jalal's attempts to expand Shadowchaser operations to Cauldron have been, by his own accounts, diplomatic and financial headaches."
"I don't intend to go as a Shadowchaser, Dugan," said Nichole, "this is my duty as a member of St. Cuthbert's clergy. You can call it a 'working vacation'."
"Fair enough," said Dugan, "you two can take a 'working vacation', but we have four tickets. I'm going as a chaperone. You two have twenty minutes to pack your things."
"Say what?" shouted Francis.
"The special train leaves only once a day at eleven o'clock and given the traffic in this city at this time of day, we might make it if we leave in twenty minutes. Keep in mind our accommodations there will likely be the same as a youth hostel. Remember, we're not there on Shadowchaser duty. And one other thing."
"Yes?" asked Nichole, the excitement in her voice very hard to hide.
"After this, you owe me a favor."
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Chicago Union Station
Francis had never liked traveling by air. It was kind of funny, really. He'd dealt with zombies, noting how movies never managed to express to the audience the stench a living corpse gave off. The first Shadow he had to handle where he truly needed his berserk was an ettin who was stealing cattle (ettins being two-headed giants known for - in part - a complete lack of hygienic habits) and had personally investigated a kidnapping of a college student by an assailant who turned out to be a swamp troll that had taken to living in the sewers. The poor girl survived, but the two days she'd been held hostage in the beast's lair required months of daily administered booster shots before she was given a clean bill of health. Trolls are that dirty.
And yet, airplanes made him sick. He was almost relieved to find that the tickets Nichole had received were train tickets until he realized Cauldron was on an island.
"So, this is a train that goes over the ocean?" asked Francis.
"Honestly, Francis, you have magical tattoos and that sort of thing surprises you?" snarked Nichole. "Doesn't that anime you used to watch have a train like that?"
Of course, to the end of her days, Nichole would wonder what possessed her to decide make an intercontinental trip on the spur of the moment and then do so after throwing random pieces of clothing into one suitcase and leaving without having showered or even brushed her teeth. Such things never occur to you until you're rushing down a concourse hoping to make the connection.
"Yeah, it was built by the greatest shipwright in the world who was also a fish-man. If the Shadowkind here had one, you'd think they'd brag about it more."
"Like I told you two before," added Dugan, "money talks in Cauldron, and it also talks enough to convince some people to stay quiet." He nodded to a door in the wall, a blue door made of shiny, shimmering metal, one which would likely stand out, but everyone seemed to be ignoring.
"Getting on the express route to Cauldron is easy once you have a ticket, simply take the ticket to any railway station in the world. The enchantment on the ticket leads you to the 'door where there was none before', and…" He grabbed hold of the knob and opened it, bringing all three of them, it seemed, down a rabbit hole.
The early comparison to the Hogwarts Express was rather accurate, as the train on the platform was indeed a steam locomotive, something that seemed very out of place on a modern railway, especially seeing as the engine was made out of brass with silver trim, and the entire train didn't seem to have so much as a smudge of the grime usually found on trains. It didn't seem to have the smell of coal and soot usually associated with a steam engine; indeed, there was barely any odor at all, even though said engine was running.
"You sure this is safe?" asked Francis.
"ALL ABOARD!" The phrase was something they never expected to hear outside of a cartoon or an old movie, but they knew what it meant. As they ran for the boarding platform, Dugan gave him one more word of assurance:
"Don't worry, they've been using this train much longer than they used the zeppelin."
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Francis had to admit, the train was far more comfortable to travel on than any airplane was, although it was no less unnerving. The passenger car they were in had room for about twenty people, but there were only about four others on when they got on, all of whom seemed to be important executive-types. He felt like he was wasting a fortune just sitting here. Now and again he'd close his eyes for a few seconds, be alerted by a loud whistle, and find that one or two new passengers had come on, sometimes replacing another. Some sort of time distorting effect seemed to conceal the stops where they boarded and disembarked.
After a while, a voice came over a loudspeaker: "ATTENTION PASSENGERS. DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE TRAIN IS EXPERIENCING A DELAY; OUR ETA HAS BEEN PUSHED BACK 30 MINUTES. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE."
"You gotta be kidding me," exclaimed Francis. "That even happens to magical locomotives?"
"Yes, just not for the same reasons," said Dugan with a nod. "Still, this may be a good time to explain Cauldron a little."
There were no objections, she he again opened the textbook where he had shown them the picture.
"So, this 'Cauldron,' it's really built on the inside of a volcano?"
Dugan nodded. "Indeed. From what I've heard, it's quite unique. The town is constructed in concentric layers, descending down into the rim of the caldera."
"Aren't they afraid that it'll erupt someday? I mean, it doesn't sound like the safest place to build a city, if you ask me."
.
"Supposedly it's extinct, or sufficiently so that the residents aren't preoccupied with the matter; there's even a lake in the center. I think that the concern was more with security, and privacy. given the nature of the region, and the site is defensible."
Of course, Dugan's expression and tone nearly contradicted what he had said. After all, he had seen enough movies to know as well as Francis and Nichole did that the more people insist a volcano will never erupt again, the more likely it is to eventually do so. After all, the proper term was used in seismology was "dormant", not "extinct".
"I suppose they originally felt they had a lot more to worry about than the volcano erupting," he continued. He opened the book again, to a two-page full-color map of the entire island. Cauldron itself was located at the west-southwest part, indicated by an icon larger than scale, the map itself being old.
"After all, it hasn't erupted for at least a thousand years?"
"Hold on," asked Nichole, "this city is a thousand years old?"
"No, no of course not. The island wasn't even discovered by humans until around the Fifteenth Century. Before that, clans of ophidia, giants, and gnolls, along with… entities of supernatural origin - as the book says - had small strongholds there, but competition with each other and infighting among each other kept all of them from dominating the whole island. Eventually, the place fell into the hands of the British Empire, but the island was notorious for having hazards surrounding it that made approach by boat difficult; dangerous reefs, a knack for bad weather, strong currents, and unfriendly tribes of sahuagin and merfolk all of which made the place impractical for settling."
"Since when did that stop them from barging into a place and conquering it?" asked Francis with a suspicious glance.
"Done your homework I see. Well, the thing is -"
"Hello!" said a sweet voice, interrupting. "Would any of you care for a beverage?"
No matter how long any of them had been in this business, interacting with creatures from beyond Shadow, it seemed there always remained ways to be surprised. The sweetly smiling attendant had blue skin and short horns below her bangs that curved backwards.
"Uhm, orange juice please," said Nichole.
"Uh, just some water," replied Dugan.
"Diet Cola," added Francis. "So, uh, Dugan, you were saying -"
"I was saying, this place seemed to have a hotbed of Shadow activity, and most Mundane explorers considered the place cursed. Then along came someone who figured that it takes one to conquer one." He turned the page, revealing a full-color reproduction of a painting, depicting a well-dressed dwarf with a full, black beard. "His name was Suramar Spellmason."
Nichole looked at the painting for a good minute. This Spellmason seemed like your typical dwarf, leather-beaten tanned skin and a dour frown. But one thing occurred to her.
"Wait, I thought dwarves didn't like boats."
"They don't," replied Dugan, "and that's not the only reason he was unique. He was a Rune Lord."
"Uh…" said Francis. In truth, he was barely listening, finding it hard to take his eyes off the attendant, who was still making eye contact as she poured his Diet Pepsi, looking at him with wide eyes that were sapphire-blue and very, very shiny teeth.
"Rune lord," said Nichole, answering the question before he could, "as in, dwarven elementalist wizard, but usually only derro make a habit of becoming full-fledged Rune Lords."
"Usually that is the case," continued Dugan. "No matter how you look at Spellmason, he was an oddball. Some even think he was a gold dwarf."
Nichole simply shook her head, and the attendant quickly handed her and Francis their drinks in the usual short glasses with ice, a 12-ounce bottle of Poland Spring to Dugan. "We'll be moving shortly," she said, before moving on.
Francis couldn't help but turn and look at her a little longer, noting she also had a tail and hooves
Nichole, on the other hand, was looking hard at the painting. She had heard some Shadows - mostly goblins and gnomes - talk about gold dwarves. An ancient and incredibly rare offshoot with divine blood, who could shape metal with their bare hands and wear it like cloth, tended orchards with trees that grew gems like fruit, and who needed no food themselves because they could eat granite and coal. Wherever they came from was a dwarf's Shangri-La.
"Anyway," continued Dugan, "around 500 years ago, Spellmason, two partners, and a small band of underlings saw potential and bought the land rights." He stopped for a minute to sip the bottled water.
"From your tone, I take it these were different than the average settlers?" asked Francis.
"Well, he obviously they knew more about this sort of thing than most, but you have to remember, this was the, ahem, Age of Exploration, where everyone in a position of power saw potential overseas."
"In other words," added Nichole, "for all this hubris, Spellmason was the type who wanted to find the Western Passage to the Orient and make a ton of money."
The train lurched for a moment or two as the engine slowly started again and they felt it move. A sudden thought came to Francis: Does this train even have tracks? How do you put train tracks on the surface of the ocean?
He tried to get his mind off it and turned to Dugan, who continued his explanation. "Exactly. Even if he was a sorcerer and seafarer, he was still a dwarf through-and-through. Some even claim - without proof I might add - that he was a Merkhant."
You didn't need to be a Shadowchaser to know what that meant. Merkhants were a loosely associated group (or rather, a club) of billionaires with a rather shallow view of the world. Some claim they were the closest anyone came to be worshipping the Almighty Dollar as an actual religion. This may have been true with some of them, but all of them were regarded as misers, tycoons, and plutocrats who believed anything and everything in the world has a price. If you tried to argue and tell them that some things simply couldn't be bought, a Merkhant would laugh and say that, if so, it wasn't worth owning.
"Thing is, Merkhants have an unofficial policy, which they regard as one of the 'secrets to success', and it's one of the few secrets they gladly share: They never agree to a project unless it promises at least 100% return on the investment. It raised a few eyebrows when he decided to fund and lead an expedition to an unsettled, unexplored island in a region that was itself largely unexplored."
"Did he know something everyone else didn't?" asked Nichole.
"Maybe, but I should point out that this is where Spellmason's reputation takes sort of a… mythic turn." He turned a few pages, showing another painting depicting the dwarf, now in less formal clothing, on a hillside, knocking over a giant with bolts of lightning.
"This painting actually meant to illustrate one of the more reliable stories about him. Most stories of his exploits chronicle how he had to fight his way into a land that resisted civilization of any sort. His battle against the demonic warlock Gogoyle - who considered the island his exclusive property because he was the most powerful individual there - is the most prevalent legend, and to this day, often involves things like how he commanded the land and sea itself to smite enemies, how he rained celestial fury on undead armies… Typical stuff like that. Most of it likely exaggerated or completely fabricated."
He turned back to the map, then pointed to the southeast part of the island. "The town of Redgorge was settled first, built as a walled fortress-town with defense in mind. Over the centuries it became nearly impregnable, one story claiming it had magical cannons and mortars capable of driving away a kraken." Noticing their disbelieving looks, he added, "Again, more exaggeration. Probably. Once that was secure, he started work on Kingfisher Hollow," he indicated the northwest part of the map, where an icon represented a town by a bay, "ensuring he controlled all shipping avenues and trade routes into and out of the island. As that was happening, he started his masterpiece, building a city within the yawning crater of the volcano. A palace of sorts that he could use to build a trade empire where he'd control the shipping lanes through the Western Passage and by doing so, rule the world!
"Ahem, of course, things didn't work out quite as he planned, but Cauldron still became a haven for folks like him, many of whom were the type who didn't fit in elsewhere. About a hundred years ago, the small town of Hollowski." He pointed to an area north of Redgorge. "Some other clans of dwarves came in and opened a brewery, became rather successful with it, and a town grew up around."
Francis started to feel queasy; the trip was starting to get bumpy, with sudden lurches here and there. Finally, however:
"ATTENTION, PASSENGERS, WE ARE TWO MINUTES FROM OUR FINAL DESTINATION. PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS UNTIL THE TRAIN HAS COME TO A COMPLETE STOP, AT WHICH TIME WE WILL BEGIN TO DISEMBARK."
Francis closed his eyes and seemed to feel the difference in the motion. The train now seemed to be moving the way he recognized, along a solid surface. Slowly, he opened the window next to him, getting his first full view of this strange city.
"WELCOME TO CAULDRON."
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….and I do believe that's as good a place as any to end the chapter. Next time, in "Q&A", our merry band gets their first glance at Cauldron, and learns the ominous reason they've been invited. Also, the return of the Shadowchaser Files! Be there or be square.
Oh, and for those wondering, the conclusion of "Shadowchasers: Tournament of Shadows" will hopefully be wrapping up soon. In the meantime, anyone hungry for more Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction might want to check out "Heirs of Fate" by my occasional co-author 7th Librarian. (Yes, that's a plug.)
Later