(A/N: Thanks to Guan, Coranth, snackfiend101 and VaguelyFamiliar for reviewing last chapter! Deekin and I are so happy! Because of you, this story is now the most reviewed in the Neverwinter Nights section! Thank-you again, and sorry this chapter took so long. On the bright side, I downloaded a nifty Neverwinter font for it...a shame you can't see it.
Caution: This chapter differs from the game. Also, it's much darker than the previous chapters. Still humorous, though.
Plug: Obviously, I'm a great fan of Deekin. My second favorite character is Xanos but sadly, I was unable to find many parts for him in my story. To remedy this, I highly recommend you read "Castles in the Sky" by VaguelyFamiliar to catch up on all the great Xanosness you're missing out on :D
Disclaimer: Neverwinter Nights isn't mine.)
Dependence I: Heartsinger
Chapter Twelve
The camp shrank out of sight as they traveled. Deekin looked over his shoulder and watched it go, then looked ahead to see a mile-long cliff rising up before them. He gazed up at the towering precipice in awe as he followed Umbra down its length, to a small waterfall that cascaded in white sheets into a sparkling pool, which kept the Ao encampment watered through a series of underground tunnels. Umbra treaded the banks of the pool, then slipped behind the waterfall, careful not to get her robe wet. Deekin carelessly slopped through the waterfall with a wide grin, drinking some of it as he went through. In this dry heat, the cool water was a great relief.
Behind the waterfall a narrow passage was cut into the rock. Umbra had to stoop down to get through it, but little Deekin was able to walk through standing at his full height. When they exited the passage, Umbra and Deekin found themselves overlooking a magnificent canyon, the highest peaks of which were oddly shaped formations with fat tops that tapered off toward the bottom. When the wind whistled through them, it produced a sound not unlike a dying man's screams.
"This place was named the Valley of Winds quite aptly," Umbra remarked. Deekin nodded--then looked down, and blanched beneath his verdant scales.
The passageway they had taken ended midway up one of the canyon's tall, steep walls. A very narrow set of stairs had been chinked out of the stone face beneath them, which would, in theory, lead them safely to the ground. But, Deekin thought nervously as he eyed it, the meager limestone steps looked as though they might flake away at any moment.
Not that this bothered Umbra, who promptly set off down the carved stairway without even lifting her robes to free her feet, leaving the hem to brush against the ground. Surprisingly, this didn't seem to obstruct her movement. Meanwhile, Deekin stood stock-still, dubiously studying the uneven, shoddy stone steps before him that could only mean doom...
Doom.
"Doom doom," Deekin muttered to himself, gingerly setting one foot on the first step. When it didn't give way and send him sprawling to his doom--"Doom doom doom," he added--Deekin relaxed a smidgen and planted the other foot on the step. Standing triumphant, he gazed down and saw that Umbra was already halfway to the ground. Realizing he'd better hurry, Deekin began cautiously hopping down the steps.
"Doom doom," he chanted to himself as he went. "Doom doom, doom doom doomity doom doooom! Doomity doom doom doom dooom! We is all doooooomed!" He smiled and quickened his pace, gaining confidence. "Doomity doomity DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOOOOMM!!" He was past the halfway mark now, and Umbra was waiting for him at the bottom. "Doom doom doom doom doom doom DOOM DOOM DOOM!" Now on the second step, he grinned, bunched his legs and lightheartedly skipped over the last step to the ground. "Doom!"
"Doom?" Umbra repeated ponderously.
"Doom!" Deekin affirmed.
"Doom," Umbra mused, thoughtfully turning and striding away. Deekin scurried to keep up and sang the newly invented "Doom Song" as he scribbled a brief note in his notebook.
They hadn't walked far through the rocky gorge, when they came upon a wide ravine split down so deep that there was no hint of a bottom; only utter darkness permeated the gap. A thin strip of stone bridged the crevasse, which Umbra strode over without a second thought. Deekin, who was having second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts about this, reluctantly stepped out onto the extension--and immediately dropped to his knees. Deciding it would be too risky to cross it while standing, he opted for clinging to the natural bridge with all four limbs and scooting along on his belly, singing the Doom Song under his breath. Umbra reached the other side long before he, but he made it without incident and that more than compensated for the lost time, he thought. Umbra said nothing about it, but simply continued on once he was safely across.
Having conquered two dangers in a short span of time, Deekin was in good spirits and sang the Doom Song with a peppy irony. A short walk later the gorge opened up to a large clearing. Umbra stopped dead in her tracks upon entering it; Deekin barely avoided crashing into her, then did the same. Despite their differences, the kobold's and the cowled hero's replies to the sight before them were in unison:
"Oh, no."
They had reached the archaeology site, but too late. It was a massacre--mutilated bodies strewn here and there around the tents, sanguine organs and splashes of blood deposited in sticky lumps about the place, trailing from the fatal wounds on myriad corpses. Here a woman had bled to death reaching for her detached leg; there a man's body was frozen in place as his bloody stump of a neck peeked out of his tent, his wandering head cut off and resting in the sand with a puzzled look. Many a body had been gored beyond recognition; several people had died staring in horror at their bare bones or revealed innards; more than one person was torn apart while comforting or trying to protect a dying friend; some had tried to group together to fend off their foe, and were consequently slain and left in piles upon each other. The only clues to the killer's identity were the many clawmarks left in the bloody sand and fetid corpses.
Deekin was dumbstruck. Umbra did not speak either; slowly, she stepped forward into the macabre scene. Doing her best to avoid the bits of cadaver tossed all about, she wordlessly surveyed the mass destruction. Deekin could read no expression on her unmoving face. Trembling with terror, he scampered over to her, gore and blood-soaked sand squelching unpleasantly beneath his feet.
"Who does this?" he whispered, half to himself. "Even gnolls not does thing like this. Somebody like Old Boss, maybe..."
Umbra was silent. Deekin went on timorously, "There be somebody with lots of power like Old Boss out there..." He paused fearfully. "Maybe somebody who wants to hurts Boss, or even Deekin." He looked up at Umbra. "Is Boss not scared?"
"Never fear," Umbra replied assuredly, turning toward him and stooping slightly to level their faces. "This one shall protect you. This, I vow."
He gave her a slight, frightened smile. "Deekin is happy to hears that...though he wonders, who protects Boss?"
"Never fear," Umbra said again, standing and walking once more. Deekin followed, getting out his notebook and writing something down. After putting the book back, he looked at his morbid surroundings and commented uneasily, "Deekin always think writing epic story of Boss be exciting and fun...but now it get scary. Deekin not expects that."
Umbra stopped again, and Deekin saw why. In front of them was a very deep pit in the ground. Over the side slumped a single corpse, its face permanently fixed in a mask of horror. The face wasn't so important, though, as the corpse's arm, dangling over the pit, its index finger outstretched. It was pointing down. Deekin's eyes followed the gesture to a doorway carved into the side of the pit, several blood-spattered rock steps leading down to it. They had to go down there.
Down they went.
---
Past the doorway, things weren't much better. At least five corpses--most were in many pieces, and Deekin didn't care to examine them long enough to find out which body part belonged to which body--lay in their own blood just in front of the entrance, having scrambled for freedom and never made it. The ones that had made it had most likely fallen to their deaths. Deekin's stomach churned at the stench of drying blood and decomposition; he turned his face up and gazed at the chamber they'd entered instead.
It was no stinger tunnel, that was for sure, but the underground ruins of a human structure--perhaps one of the fallen cities of Netheril! he mused with an excited shiver. He was standing at the intersection of two angular halls, carved out of stone and carrying the musty smell of age. He leaned his head further, wondering what lie at the halls' ends.
"Fall back," Umbra commanded, yanking Deekin backwards. "Fall silent." Deekin obeyed; Umbra murmured and swung her long hands. His field of vision flickered, then darkened. He blinked, but the effect remained. Twisting his head, he could see Umbra clearly, yet all around them was a large sphere of transparent blackness. Inspecting this oddity more closely, he could see the surface writhed slightly, as though with a life of its own. Intrigued, he pulled out the shard Umbra had given him and held it up to the sphere. The shard's and the sphere's dark swirlings were a perfect match.
Umbra set a cool palm upon his head, careless of his horns, and prompted him to look up. Tucking the shard away, he did so.
Past the obscuration, his keen kobold eyes could make out the dim halls. There was a dull thudding noise, growing louder quickly, until a green, froglike creature slumped into view. In place of hands it bore swollen, bloodstained claws, which hung slack at the sides of its hunched-over humanoid frame. The monster swiveled its squat head and squinted through the darkness with gleaming, pupilless red eyes; perceiving that there was nothing there, it shrugged its lumpy shoulders and shuffled on out of sight.
"You sees that, Boss?" Deekin gasped. "That be slaad! That be what kills--"
"We are cloaked by a globe of invisibility," Umbra cut in quietly. "Noise would betray us." After puzzling that sentence out, Deekin nodded and kept his mouth shut. He was certain the great hero could easily defeat that slaad--even if it was an otherwordly monstrosity--but who knew what else lie within this long-buried place? It would be best to stay hidden until they figured things out.
Fortunately, the globe moved with them as they walked, Umbra in the lead--he supposed she didn't trust him not to race ahead into trouble after the incident with then manticore. They headed down the hall the slaad had gone down, traipsing quietly just behind the beast. Deekin felt uneasy in such close proximity to the foul planar, but believed that Umbra knew best. Indeed, the slaad never once detected their presence. There were more slaadi--some green, some blue, some red--as Umbra and Deekin embarked farther down the excavated halls, as well as the occasional shredded archaeologist remains to reinstate the horror. Deekin could smell his own fear; he hoped the globe kept the scent from reaching the slaadi.
That impending feeling of doom--how Deekin longed to sing the Doom Song right then--hung heavier in the stale air with every passing step. They wandered farther and farther into the treacherous network of halls, reminding Deekin of his time in the Silver Marches, fleeing from undead in the crypts with the other kobolds. Even then, though, he had not been overcome with such dread. The smallest things were making him jump, and he could swear the rusted suits of armor and stone gargoyles that lined the corridors were watching him with hidden eyes.
"Never fear. This one shall protect you. This, I vow."
Umbra said nothing now, but Deekin remembered her past words to him. He smiled up faithfully at the Boss. Yes, of course the great hero would protect him. His nerves eased, and they continued on.
Carefully trodding on thickly dusted floors, Deekin viewed their surroundings. They had turned down a very wide hall now, one lined with tall, ornate pillars. Just in front of them was a group of red slaadi, who were kicking around some burnt corpses and making a game of it. Deekin was sickened, but followed Umbra as she tried to pass them.
"Yogu domm boshu!" a gray slaad growled suddenly, coming out of a back room. The red slaadi looked about in confusion. The gray slaad muttered something to itself, then cast a spell. The barrier hiding Umbra and Deekin vanished.
"YOGU DOMM BOSHU!" the gray slaad repeated irritably, gesturing at the hero and the kobold.
"Ooohhh," realized the red slaadi, then rushed to attack the two intruders. Seeing that there was no time to prepare a powerful spell, Umbra drew her glowing swords and slashed at the slaadi. Deekin stepped back, wondering whether he should reach for his crossbow. It didn't seem like a good idea; if his guess was correct and all a bolt in the shoulder did was merely annoy a slaad, the creature could easily swagger over, mash him to a pulp, and return to the battle with Umbra, and then Deekin wouldn't be of much help to anyone, except maybe some starving rats. No, he'd have to think of something else.
But there wasn't much time to think--two slaadi were lumbering toward him. Deekin cast "Color Spray", which disoriented them long enough to give him time to think. Of course!
The slaadi recovered themselves and lunged simultaneously at the kobold, who smiled confidently at them, then spread out his hand. A flash of frost burst out at the monsters, encrusting them in a thin layer of ice. Enduring bouts of hypothermia at this sudden chill, the slaadi collapsed to the floor and shivered violently. Deekin didn't waste a moment in grabbing his rapier and finishing the job while the monstrosities were at a disadvantage.
Deekin killed off three more slaadi in this manner, while Umbra took care of the rest. Surrounded by a mass of otherworldly red corpses and one gray cadaver, Deekin healed his own wounds and offered to heal Umbra's, but once again she insisted she was fine.
"If you insists, Boss," he relented, closing a cut on his arm, then turned his attention to the room at the end of the corridor. "That be where slaadi come from."
"Indeed."
"Should we goes?"
"We must."
"Deekin thoughts you say that," he sighed, trying to scrape some of the dried blood off his foot. Umbra then started off down the corridor, Deekin close behind.
The corridors had been sallow with the unsteady light of the few torches that still burned. The broad room at the hall's end, however, was plunged into darkness. Deekin's nostrils wrinkled at the mixed stench of fresh rot and aged mildew; on the floor, he could discern a few human bodies splayed in uncomfortable positions. Pressed against the sides of the room were rows of slaadi, the colors of their pebbly hides lost to the dark. The monsters stayed still as stone.
At the room's back, an old, intricately carved bronze chair seated a feminine humanoid figure in a form-fitting leather pantsuit, her ankles crossed and head downturned. In her right hand, she clutched a severed human head, its mouth still twisted in a silent scream as its wounded bottom dripped blood. As Deekin and Umbra approached, the mysterious woman turned her hooded face up with a sinister smile. Dropping the head in a puddle of its own blood, she got up out of her chair and crossed the room to meet them.
"Ah, you have come to join me at last," the woman greeted Umbra in a seething voice that sent shivers up Deekin's spine. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever show up." She cast Deekin a downward glance. "And what's this creature you bring? A...a kobold? It...it is a kobold..."
"Deekin is bard to the great and mighty hero who will slay you!" Deekin snapped at the malicious figure, then added softly, "Umm...but Deekin mostly here for posterity reasons..."
The cowled woman looked back at Umbra. "Well, now that you're here, let us get down to business, shall we?" Sweeping her arms, the woman chanted some extravagant arcane phrases. Suddenly, everything around Deekin grew very bright...
When Deekin could see again, he was no longer in the gloom of the excavated ruins. Rather, he was standing in hot sand under the even hotter Anauroch sun. For a moment, he thought he had dreamt all that horror up and was back with the caravan--and then he saw it.
Black spires, rising out of the sand and looming starkly against the bright sky. Twinkling mosaic windows, glaring in the fierce sunlight. Delicate terraces, steeply sloping roofs, triangular bricks, ridiculously arched doorways and decorated doors within them, enclosed skywalks, and abstract stone likenesses of grim demons and revered saints perched side by side on the eaves. The splendor and enormity of it all struck Deekin with awe, and he wondered if he should bow. Without a doubt, this was what remained of one of the great empires of ancient Netheril.
"It is...Undrentide," Umbra said, standing solemn.
"Yesss," the woman hissed in admiration, her eyes trained on the complex structure. "It is glorious, isn't it?" Deekin nodded fervently, though she wasn't addressing him, and turned to face her. In this light, he could make out her gaunt gray face more clearly, though the hood hid most of it. Her hair coiled in odd-textured dreadlocks about her jutting cheekbones, a shade darker than her skin. The hood itself was mismatched with the rest of the outfit, plain gray cloth as opposed to the tight brown leather of the suit, and bound to the suit with stitches that pulsed with magic. The hood resembled Umbra's, actually.
"So you know its name?" the woman grinned at Umbra, after a moment more of fawning over Undrentide. "Tell me...do you have a name?"
"This one is called Umbra Lumina," Umbra responded coolly. "This one would ask your name, in turn, for it seems you presume to know this one."
"I am Heurodis," the woman smiled, "and I do. You are a servant escaped its master, correct?"
"How...how do you know that?" Umbra cried; her face showed nothing, but her tone was confused. Deekin was confused, as well, guessing that her master was the dwarf. But...Umbra was his apprentice, not his servant. Wasn't she? The thought of his Boss, a servant, brought up conflicting emotions in Deekin. Troubled, he cast them aside and listened.
"Oh, your master told me all about you," Heurodis answered. "Bemoaned you, actually, and complained that he couldn't trust anyone, anymore. Strange...he seemed to trust me enough to tell me his life story."
Deekin was getting too sun-cooked to listen clearly, and instead examined the two mysterious, hooded female figures before him. Female and cowled alike as they were, in every other respect they differed.
"He is prone to such," Umbra sighed. "This one has heard his tale far too many times."
The kobold studied the hooded ones' similarites and differences closely. They were like twins--no, mirror images, but reflecting differently. It reminded him of something...
"So I imagine," Heurodis said dryly. "He mentioned that he gave you a robe enchanted by Vecna himself before he sent you off. I see that you wear it now."
What did that remind him of? It was on the tip of Deekin's tongue...
"Would you care to take it off? The hood, that is," Heurodis quested slyly.
Deekin realized it was Daschnaya's fortune he was remembering.
"My hood shall stay where it is," Umbra stated firmly.
"Beware the unlike mirror's gaze..."
"Secretive, are we?" Heurodis chuckled. "Or ashamed? Ah, well, no matter. I wear such a hood myself. If you will not remove yours, allow me to remove mine..."
Beware her gaze! Deekin thought frantically as Heurodis's hands moved to pull back the hood.
"Boss, don't let--" Deekin started.
Too late. With a small burst of magic, the hood fell back and Heurodis's semi-normal face reverted to a malformed, hideous compilation of scaly flesh, two reptilian eyes glowing out of it vehemently as her fanged jaws unhinged with strings of saliva, sunken nostrils flaring to breathe and livid snakes writhing in a ring around her face. Heurodis was a medusa, and without the hood to obstruct it her stone gaze changed Deekin and Umbra to rock in one hope-shattering instant.
Heurodis emitted a pleased hiss and snaked a hand into Umbra's pack, withdrawing the mythal, which refracted the late sun's rays into a small, faint rainbow. Heurodis inspected the crystalline sphere with a happy look on her terrible face.
"Your master told me he had sent you to the dwarf's to retrieve the mythal, so he could make Undrentide fly again," Heurodis remarked to the statue that had been Umbra. "But you never returned. Don't worry, though...I have the mythal now! Now Undrentide shall rise again! And all the power of ancient Netheril that lies within it is mine! All of Faerun shall hear my name and fear me!" Heurodis laughed ecstatically, turning and walking away with the mythal in hand, set on entering Undrentide's shell and reviving it.
Though a statue, Deekin was still conscious. As he watched Heurodis go, taking all his hopes and dreams with her, he thought that there couldn't have a more appropriate time to sing the Doom Song. If only he could move his mouth...
(Don't worry, this story is far from over. Keep an eye out for lucky Chapter Thirteen!)