Chapter Twenty Three: Waterdeep
Dock Ward, 12 Hammer, 1370 DR
It was dark, dingy and it stank.
The winds from the Sea of Swords whipped through the ward, bringing salt and sleet hammering against the dull rock buildings. The clouds, black and oppressive, gathered in the sky above, unleashing wave after wave of lashing rain upon the streets of Waterdeep. The shadows and darkness created by the river were natural hiding places for the thieves and rogues, so rife in this area of Waterdeep.
Imoen walked through the howling wind, her cloak wrapped tightly around herself, and her staff thudding heavily against the slippery rock surface of the streets. She glanced enviously at the warmth and light of the houses and many taverns, and wished for a second that she was safe inside there, with a mug of ale, looking into the crackling depths of the flames that burned in the ancient hearths.
Wishful thinking.
Instead, she was walking in a heavy storm that had most people in Waterdeep safe in their beds, warm- or cold, depending on their monetary situation. Hardly any of them were striding through the streets huddled against the rain.
But then, hardly any of them were archmages desperately trying to stave of the destruction of Amn, the mercantile empire far to the south, and a constant and bitter business rival of the City of Splendour.
"Apheyr is most happy, archmage Imoen. He feels free finally, in the wind and rain of Toril. It sings to his air elemental blood… he want you to know how grateful Apheyr is for this chance to experience the delight of the weather."
As usual, Imoen could hear the richly accented voice of the air genasi mage. With the wind though, it should have gone quieter, but his voice was just as strong- if not stronger. It floated on the wind, powerful and potent.
She grinned slightly, "Believe me, Apheyr, this was not my intention!"
The air genasi caught up with her, wearing his bright white robes with the sky blue runes of magic marked on them. His two daggers made from the shards of an ice elemental prince lay sheathed in his blue-silk belt. Imoen noticed that his feet were not touching the floor- that he was floating. He turned his face to stare at Imoen, his face concerned,
"You did not wish to make Apheyr feel happy?"
Imoen swallowed her laugh. "No, silly. I mean it wasn't my intention to get caught in this terrible weather. We were meant to be here three days ago. Damn that inter-planar distortion… my planar sphere hasn't got enough energy to continue all these temporal shifts to move us around quickly…"
Apheyr sighed, "A down-side to possessing a planar sphere. This, Apheyr knows most well. His friend, Taiblin Amaji, a fire genasi possessed one- it exploded once Taiblin was attempting a shift such as you said. Luckily Taiblin had gained enough foresight to protect himself, or there would be one lost soul trapped between planes."
Imoen shook her head. "Once again, Apheyr, you inspire me with absolute confidence."
The mage smiled. "That is good. Apheyr would not want to scare you."
She sighed, "I was being sarcastic."
"Apheyr does not understand you."
A sudden movement to her left made Imoen frown. She said to Apheyr, "Stop! I can hear something. There is something moving around. Apheyr, tell the twins to get here quickly."
"We are here, Imoen."
Imoen saw the shining skin of the two bards appear out of the shadows. They had obviously cast an invisibility spell to keep themselves safe from casual observers. But now that need had passed. Something was coming for them.
Something big.
A rumbling in the earth made Imoen swallow, her mouth dry. "Boy, am I tired of this."
"Apheyr wishes to know of this boy… who is he?"
Imoen thought it better to ignore him. While she still could, she activated her contingencies, and then grasped her staff tightly as her spell protections surrounded her. After wrestling with her thoughts to decide the best cause of action, she sent a spinning chromatic orb into the air, and watched as it exploded, lighting up the street.
Hopefully, the City Watch would see the flash, and come to aid her and her companions.
The rumbling continued, and Imoen took another step back. Fire flashed around her, and she heard the aasimar twins scream in pain. Imoen saw the tell-tale streaks of barrier-shattering spells, and instinctively cast a spell shield.
The spells sent to blast aside her protections were absorbed by the shield, which then disintegrated. Imoen hastily replenished the spell shield with another spell, and turned to see her attackers.
But nothing showed any trace of an attacker.
Except for a faintly stirring shadow on the roof!
A quick spell sent a series of magic missiles leaping from her hand towards the distant figure. A loud shout and Imoen felt an invisibility spell shatter, revealing the extent of the attack upon her person.
She paled.
Twenty wizards!
She backed away, and sent a bolt of chain lightning rushing towards the wizards. One wizard was struck, and the wizard beside him was hit by the energy as it leapt between them. But it did not kill them. Imoen could only assume they were protected by some sort of lightning resistance.
Spell protections, gleaming and bright sprang up around the attacking mages.
"Apheyr sees our deaths, Imoen. There are too many wizards to fight."
Imoen whispered, "Use an invisibility spell,
then fly above the range of their detection spells. Then you can soar down and
take as many as possible out. Don't worry, they will
be hard-pressed to stand against me."
She drew herself up, and threw back her
cloak, frowning and pulling her best impression of a powerful archmage, angry
and powerful. Finally though, she had to smile. "Darn, I'm just not cut out for
all this whole 'I'm an archmage, die please' kinda
life. Listen up, you guys, should I give you to the count of three before
coming to smack your stinky bottoms, or am I just gonna
save myself the trouble and fry your butts?"
There was a silence.
"That is it, you are so gonna die!"
She moved her hand, and unleashed a spell trigger. Khelben's warding whip sprang around one of the mages, then another, then another. Spell protections faded, and vainly they tried to cast them again- but this was what Imoen wanted.
With a few flippant gestures, she launched a fireball- then a cloudkill spell towards the wizards. The combination of cloudkill and fire created a massive explosion that caused the buildings the wizards were standing to collapse, into a massive crater. Sulphur and smoke could be smelt, and Imoen sighed when she heard the many shouts of alarm spreading through Waterdeep.
The City Watch would certainly be here soon.
Imoen turned to see about eleven wizards picking themselves up from the ground. Nine of them had been killed by the explosion- there were limits to what a spell could protect from, and an explosion powerful enough to destroy three buildings was just that bit past the limit.
"I did warn you guys… whoever you are. Hey, if it was up to me, there wouldn't be any killing anywhere… it's your own fault. You could have just left me alone, and I wouldn't have had to do the whole 'ass-kicking mage' affair, would I? Ah well, shall we continue to dance the dance of death, as I heard one pompous git say before I fried him? Oops, maybe I shouldn't say that, it's probably jinxed, that phrase. Darn, your getting me all waffly. Tell you what, you could just wiggle your cutesy little fingers and teleport yourselves out of here, and then I could get on with my tiny little quest… how rude!"
Multiple protection-breaking spells hit her, and one of them broke through the spell shield. Luckily, she still had other protections activated. She put her free hand on her hip, and yelled: "That was a dirty trick, attacking me while I was shouting at you! You weirdos!"
She cast an earthquake spell, adapted to the arcane arts after a discussion with Viconia and Anomen. She watched as the wizards tumbled and fell. Spells they had been casting failed, and they grunted as the backlash of failed energy rushed through them.
Imoen gestured with her staff, and sent a series of lightning bolts and fireballs sailing through the air. The eleven wizards teleported though, until they were standing on the other buildings behind her. She shook her head.
"Are you thick, you morons? How about a bit of déjà vu to brighten things up!"
This time she sent three cloudkill spells, and then sent her special fireball. This time she was thrown back by the force and heat. Rock and dust sprayed all over the area, as an entire row of houses was destroyed.
But the eleven wizards still stood, standing now in front of her. Imoen realised they had used an illusion to trick her into thinking they were standing on the building. She jumped to her feet, "That's kinda clever, y'know. Something old Elmy'd do. Y'know, use the old 'I'm an archmage, lets trick ya' routine. Shame its so old. Oh, and by the way, this whole 'silence' thing? That's old too. Way, too old. In fact, it stinks like a half-rotten corpse. Damn, you are really annoying, do y'all know that?"
It was a sign of how annoyed Imoen was that she was falling back into her old way of speaking. Her education in Suldanesselar before they started the quest to defeat the Five had helped her speak more 'properly'. But when she was infuriated, she found herself lapsing into the Imoen speak that she loved so much more than the arrogant, pompous, oh-so-correct way of speaking that most people preferred.
She sent a cone of cold blasting towards the line of wizards.
In the centre of that cone of cold, Apheyr appeared, wielding his two daggers. He moved inside the blast of cold air, and as the ice washed over the wizards, he landed beside them, as fast and cat-like as Imoen had seen. His dagger stabbed through the protections of one wizard, who had not been anticipating a physical fight.
But Imoen saw no more of that fight.
A flash of blackness made her grunt, and she stumbled forward. When her vision was restored, she saw two angelical beings standing before her. An aura of pure malevolence could be sensed, rolling off the two like heat from a flame.
Planetar!
Imoen cursed, and utter a quick spell, teleporting herself about three hundred yards down the street. The angelic beings, with their dark wings, leapt into the air, and started to soar towards her.
Two golden arrows struck them directly.
And two more.
And two more.
The aasimar twins knelt in the corner of a street, shooting arrow after gleaming arrow with their golden bows. The dark planetar stopped in their attack on Imoen, and turned to face the twins, who did not flinch. With vicious speed, the two dark angelic beings raised blades of black energy, and struck the heads of the two aasimar, shattering through armour with ease. Imoen shrieked, "No!"
But the planetar did not worry about human emotions. They had been summoned merely to kill, to defeat this archmage before she could hinder the advance of evil any more than she already had.
Imoen rasped out spell after spell, sending energy in its purest form attacking the planetar. Wind, ice, fire! Fire, ice, wind! Chromatic orbs, magic missiles, force missiles, ice daggers, fireballs, cones of cold, fingers of death, stunning spells, time stop… Imoen tried everything, throwing every single spell she had memorised at these monsters.
But they did not stop.
Imoen screamed out a spell in pure desperation, but watched in despair as it fizzled into the air, a broken mess of energy. One of the planetar towered above her, its weapon gleaming black. Its sword swept through the air towards her-
-but the creature was thrown back.
Imoen gaped, as another planetar, this one a bright pink swept into the dark one. The pink and black creature clashed, striking at each other with blades of equal power. Imoen turned to face the other planetar, and watched as it raised its blade above her, ready to strike her into death-
-but it never made the slash.
A solar, gleaming gold knocked the second planetar, and Imoen watched in wonder as the four divine beings clashed in the skies above Waterdeep. Apheyr landed nearly silently beside Imoen, and stared at them in awe.
"Apheyr has never seen anything so beautiful, or so terrifying."
Imoen just stood silently.
With loud curses, the dark planetar fled from the pink and golden divine agents, leaping into a vortex of energy created by the arrival of so many divine agents in such a short time. Imoen watched as the golden and pink agents looked at each other for a time- then the golden one leapt into the same vortex-
-the pink one walked towards Imoen.
Imoen!
She recognised the voice immediately, "Cespenar?"
Yes, unfortunately. Your Lady of Song has a terrible sense of humour. I accepted her service, and asked her to increase my power- obviously thinking of her turning me into a higher glabrezu, or something. But she turned me into a male bard, which, while the various parts of the anatomy interested me, was hardly desirable to me. I asked her to change me into something else, and so she turned me into a pink planetar. Ah, the ignobility!
Imoen raised an eyebrow. "Ah… yes. I suppose you could see it like that…"
Oh, I do. But it doesn't matter. Kathryn is a better mistress than Bhaal ever was, and it she wants to make me suffer like this, then I am sure she has a reason. Besides, I am starting to quite like this body. Makes me much more desirable, I think. Take the other day, I was walking through Realmspace, when I met a really rather voluptuous elven maiden, as you do, and she was really quite taken with me, so I chatted with her for a few hours, and then we started-
"Cespenar! I didn't want to hear of your escapades when you were an imp, and I certainly don't want to hear of them when you're a planetar!"
Fine, be like that. The Mistress wants me to give you a big apocalypse talk, or something like that. She told me to say that a massive conflict is coming, both in the heavens and on Faerûn. For you to stand a chance, you must find and bring together the companions she ever met and who ever travelled with the party. All are targets, all must be saved from the tides of evil that threaten to defeat us all.
"I see."
This is really important, Imoen. She told me that if you fail in this, there is no hope for Amn, and her worship will fall into the mire of anonymity. All the good she hopes to accomplish will fade, and all that will exist is endless strife in the realm of Amn and the Sword Coast…