(A/N: Another short chapter, though slightly longer than the previous. As you may have noticed, the Relic of the Reaper in this fanfic differs from its in-game equivalent. You will be finding a lot of changes as the story progresses. In the meantime, enjoy, and thanks to all who reviewed last chapter!
Disclaimer: Neverwinter Nights doesn't belong to me... YET. Joking... it'll never belong to me.)
Chapter Four
"Deekin, you seem changed." Umbra's comment was abrupt. They had been wandering Undermountain's main hall for a time now, never stopping to loot or open a door--from what Deekin had heard, this was the safest tactic when dealing with Undermountain. Greed would be one's downfall in this place. That they had not encountered any others, whether dead or alive, just yet, which indicated that the others had not been so sensible. For the time they walked down the hall, however, Umbra and Deekin had not said anything to each other. There was so much to be said that it was difficult to know where to start; enough to clench even Deekin's jaw. So they had been silent, quietly enjoying each other's company as they hadn't in so long, letting the reunion impress upon them. But now, it was time to speak.
"Changed?" Deekin looked up at her, surprised but pleased that she had noticed. He looked down at his lute, strumming the strings absentmindedly. "Well... the old boss once tell Deekin that he gots dragon blood, that it be strong in him. Deekin never knows what that means... Deekin be small and weak and not breathes fire or anything." He looked up at the ceiling as he walked, noticing a series of cracks in it which a small brown insect scurried in and out of. "But after you leaves, Deekin realizes what old boss means. After you leaves, Deekin knows he gots to fends for himself, that he gots to be strong." He paused, playing a few quick notes on the lute.
"Go on," Umbra urged. Deekin put the lute down.
"Deekin starts training to be dragon disciple, to brings out his dragon blood. It not be very obvious... but sometimes... sometimes when Deekin fights he feels heart beatings really fast and he feel... strong." He looked up at Umbra hesitantly. "Does that seem silly to you, boss?"
"Not at all," Umbra assured him. Deekin scratched his head, unsure.
"It be up to you, Boss. Deekin do what you tells him to. If you wants Deekin to just be faithful bard, instead, Deekin do that and be happy."
"This one cannot decide that for you, Deekin," Umbra replied. "It is your choice, and yours alone. Do that which would make you happiest, but do not become blinded by pursuit for power. Serving under the shadow lich has taught this one well the price of such greed." Deekin beamed up at her gratefully.
"Thanks, Boss."
"Anytime, friend," Umbra responded. Deekin smiled, and they fell silent again. He wanted desperately to ask Umbra about her time in the Plane of Shadow, but knew better than to do so. She had only just escaped the place after a long banishment; bringing it up so soon after would only depress her. Best now to leave her be on the topic.
The hallway ended suddenly, their passage barred by a roughly hewn stone door. There was no handle; Umbra gave it a test push. Obediently, the door swung inward. Umbra was the first to step inside, Deekin following soon after. His eyes swept the room, in awe of what they saw.
They had entered a large, rounded room. Rimming the walls were at least a dozen thrones, painstakingly carved of dark metal. In contrast, the black thrones seated pale skeletons, garbed in ragged clothing which hinted at past finery. A few wore rusted crowns, somehow attached to the slick domes of their bare skulls. Dried husks though they were now, it was obvious they had been important when they lived.
"Deekin reads about this place," Deekin said quietly as they ventured into the room, looking around in astonishment. "This be 'Hall of Sleeping Kings'." Still though they were, the skeletons did indeed give the impression that they were merely sleeping, not dead. Deekin shook his head and went on, "They once rules over lands, very, very long time ago. Halaster keeps them here 'for reasons unknown', books says. Book also--" He froze, staring at a throne he hadn't noticed before.
"What is it?" Umbra followed his gaze. "Oh."
The throne Deekin's eyes had settled upon differed from the others. Gathered about the bottom and sides were stacks of various animal furs, worm-eaten with age. Flaky animal skulls were laid atop them, their fanged jaws unhinged in eternal moans. The king who reigned silently on the throne above them wasn't in any better shape. Unlike the others, he was more than a skeleton; shriveled brown flesh clung his bones yet. The mummified corpse was placed upright, arms solemnly crossed over his chest. He wore no clothes, so a large slit in his stomach from whence the organs had been long ago removed was apparent. His features were warped with dehydration, strands of hair still clinging to his scalp, pressed down by a slim, spiked crown. Something about the whole setup was innately disturbing, even to one as used to death and gore as Deekin. With a shiver, he started to turn away, when a strange voice made him spin back around and stumble back in fear.
"You there! Yes, you!" The voice was tense and harsh, with a metallic echo to it. It took Deekin a moment or so to realize it was not the mummy speaking. He turned around to seeing Umbra facing one of the skeleton kings, who held a black-bladed sword in his lap. The sword glittered an electric blue, almost leaping out of the corpse's grip as the voice spoke from within it. "Take me out of this brute's hand and away from here! I swear, if I must suffer one more decade staring at this room I shall go mad!"
"A talking sword, are you?" Umbra pondered, curiously drawing closer; Deekin scrabbled up to get a closer look at the enchanted blade as well. The sword sighed heavily.
"Far be it from me to make a simple request and hope that an adventurer might do as they are asked, for once. No? Fine. Let's start this out correctly, shall we?" The sword's tone was tired as he introduced himself. "My name is Enserric the Grey. Or, at least, that was my name before my spirit was drawn into this blasted weapon. Yes, yes, chuckle away at my predicament, go ahead."
"Were this one lent to chuckling--" Umbra began, but was cut off as the sword continued beleagueredly.
"You see, I was once an adventurer just as you are, seeking my path through infamous Undermountain. When I was killed by this sword, my soul was sucked inside and here I have been ever since."
"That is a misfortune," Umbra noted. "And you seek to escape now?"
"There is no escape from the sword, now." The sword paused for a moment, thinking. "Well, none that I know of. My soul should have disappated long ago, but I was not about to let that happen. Instead of properly dying I stubbornly tried to escape this sword and return to my body. Instead of being successful, I became... stuck..."
"...and now your soul is entombed within the blade, dooming you to spend your undeath in the hands of a lord not alive himself," Umbra finished.
"Well put," Enserric said, his world-weary snobbery giving way to desperate entreatment. "Please, I beg you! Have a heart, my lady! Take me away from this hall and use me to chop all your enemies to ribbons... at least that would be a better fate than counting the dust mites upon the floor!"
"Let's takes him, Boss," Deekin encouraged. "Deekin spends long time countings pill bugs on floor of old boss's cave, and let Deekin tells you, it gets old."
"As does counting shadow wisps in a chamber of darkness," Umbra commiserated, reaching for Enserric's hilt. "Very well, sword. We two empathize with your plight...you may join us." Before she could take the sword, the dead king's skeletal hand clamped down on her wrist. Umbra freed her hand with amazing fluidity and snatched Enserric up anyway, drawing her own sword with the free hand. Deekin smiled for a moment, seeing Umbra wielding two longswords again. The smile vanished when the skeleton king staggered to his dry, clinking feet, as did the skeleton rulers in the two thrones nearest him. The effect rippled, pushing the skeletons into standing positions all around the room. Deekin spun around just to see the mummy lord snap his arms away from his chest and claw at his mouth, tearing the fused skin away and allowing the long-shut mouth to wrench open with a dry moan. Circling the room, the resurrected cadavers began to enclose Deekin and his hero, jeweled scepters and antiquated swords in their hands.
"You rather neglected to mention this would happen," Umbra told Enserric.
"Well, you are in Undermountain," Enserric responded simply. "I figured you would be prepared."
"So this one is." Umbra lunged forth, slicing a skeleton's head off and sending it toppling to the floor, where it crashed and splintered into half a hundred brittle shards. The decapitated body continued on without it, bringing the top of its heavy polearm toward Umbra, who deftly ducked out of the way and smashed the bony foe's knees in. It crumpled to the ground, whereupon Umbra stamped it into small, unthreatening pieces and moved on to the next. Deekin was quick to come to his hero's aid, casting a fire spell that engulfed many of the skeletons, who were too fragile to withstand the heat and quickly dwindled to cinders. Umbra joined in with a fire spell of her own, destroying the rest in the same manner. Deekin smiled up at her, then looked down at a pain in his ankle to see he was being bitten by a rogue skull. Unimpressed, Deekin shook his leg free and crushed the skull with his foot, then winced and picked a bone shard out of the bottom of his foot.
"A-HA! YES!" Enserric shouted triumphantly. "That's for imprisoning me in this blasted weapon for all these years, you worthless excuses for--oh. Don't look now, but there's one left, mind you."
"This one is aware," Umbra replied, facing the opposite direction that Deekin was.
"Uuhhh..." Deekin turned around and gaped. The mummy was staggering toward them, the flames licking at his dry flesh doing seemingly little but increase his formidability. Umbra kept her weapons ready, and Deekin spread his palms apart, starting an ice spell. The mummy let out a blood-curdling scream, then disintegrated into a flaming mass of ashes before them.
"Well... that was anti-climactic," Deekin grimaced, disappointedly letting the spell finish. A thin ice spray cast out over the ashes, quelling the fire and showing that the undead was truly dead.
"Indeed it was," Umbra agreed, slipping both swords into the sheaths criss-crossed over her back. Enserric gave a disgruntled cry, but it was muffled by the scabbard he'd been encased in. Realizing quickly that his displeasure had gone unheeded, the sword kept quiet. After all, anything was better than being in that damned skeleton's hands for another second.
There were two doors, each on an opposite side of the room. The open door was the one they had entered through, so the closed one was logically the way out. Umbra wasted no time opening it and striding through, Deekin following close behind after jotting a few notes of the epic battle in his notebook. The hall on this side of the room was just as dusty as the first, but much shorter, so they could clearly see the door at its end. It was very impressive, with a billowing clouds of white smoke completely concealing whatever lie beyond it, and two dots of red light circling each other just above the doorframe.
"Halaster go all out on this one," Deekin remarked, making another note and starting toward it. Umbra latched onto his collar, stopping him.
"Could it not be a trap?" Umbra posed. Deekin shook his head.
"Could be... but probably not," Deekin explained. "Halaster not makes instant kill traps, really... mostly traps with way out, if you be heroic enough." Satisfied with this answer, though still cautious, Umbra released her small friend and darted ahead, entering the mystical door before he could. The clouds enveloped her and hid her from sight, but after a moment or so Umbra's hand reached back through and beckoned Deekin, signaling that it was safe. Smiling, Deekin skipped through.
The clouds engulfed and disoriented him for an instant, but blinking cleared the mist out of his eyes and enabled him to see they had entered the beginning of another hall.
"Where you think we--" Deekin began.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The ear-splitting shriek came from further down the passage, echoing down to where they were. The voice was too ambiguous to know who--or what--had produced it, but was clearly terrified.
"Come now!" Umbra ordered, dashing off down the hallway. Deekin nodded and sprinted after. Their footfalls echoed down the hall's length, bounced along by hard stone walls. There was another sound echoing along it from further on, a loud banging noise that Deekin wondered at. The hall switched off to the left abruptly; Umbra took the turn smoothly, Deekin... with a little less grace, banging roughly into a wall before catching himself and continuing to follow his boss. The hall finally widened, spreading out into a large half-circle of a room, the other half cut out by a wall. In this wall was a stone door, and surroundings the stone door were four male drow. Umbra grabbed Deekin and jerked him back into the hallway, where he quieted his breathing and together they listened.
Exactly what the drow were saying was a mystery, for the dark elves were speaking in their own language. From what Deekin could tell, though, they seemed to swearing loudly. He made a note of this in his tome, of course. Finally, one of the drow reverted somewhat to Common speech.
"Let us in, phindar!" the drow commanded brusquely, pounding on the door.
"Nnnnnoooo," a plaintive voice moaned, barely audible beyond the door's thickness.
"Then you leave us no choice, rath'arg!" the drow snapped, smacking the door with a heavy, spiked mace. One of the other drow said something, and the drow bludgeoning the door stopped and stepped back. The speaker, garbed in a flowing red-and-black robe, murmured something in arcane verse. Strings of fire twirled up from nowhere and slapped furiously at the door. Several whips of the fire-strings later, the spell finally wore off, but for all the spellcaster's effort the door bore not even a scratch. He cursed the door in Drow tongue and commanded the other to do something. They nodded in reply, took out their maces and besieged the door.
"That door is the only continuation of our route," Umbra stated in a hushed tone. "We should slay the drow and try to find a way past it ourselves." So saying, she prepared a spell. Four balls of fire appeared from nowhere, each plunging down and hitting a drow. The drow screamed and fell to their knees, trailing smoke, the fire having self-extinguished. Umbra repeated the spell twice more, the drow too disoriented to seek out their enemy and counter-attack. A fourth attack finally killed them, and Umbra and Deekin rushed forth from their hiding place and over to the door. Deekin carefully avoided the charred corpses on the way, making another note of Umbra's bravery in his notebook.
Umbra pressed her hand against the door and mumbled strange words. The door glowed white momentarily, then faded back to normal. Umbra pushed it; it did not give. Umbra made a sighing sound that wasn't quite a sigh and and paused, trying to think of another spell that might work. To her surprise, Deekin walked up and knocked on the door.
"Anyone be in there?" he called. Silence.
"Yeees..." a scared voice said finally from beyond the door.
"You lets us in, maybe?" Deekin wondered kindly. More silence.
"How's I supposed to know you ain't those mean dark elves?" the voice said at last.
"We not mean drow," Deekin insisted. "We kills drow."
"You whupped them good?" the voice said hopefully, then grew suspicious. "Unless you are them and you're trying to trick me!"
"Open the door no more than a slat, and you will see for yourself what we are," Umbra told the unseen speaker. Another silence; finally, the door creaked open an inch or so. A moment or so later, the door opened all the way.
"Thank y--AGH!" Deekin yelped, taken aback by what he saw beyond the now-open door.
"Hey!" the revealed speaker said pleasantly. "You was right! You ain't them drow, after all!" He grinned welcomingly, an expression that warped the stretched skin of his face into a disturbing expression. He was a flesh golem, created entirely of humanoid corpses sewn together with twine. This led to a very malformed appearance, with one arm stretching longer than the other, and one hand built from the uncorrupted halves of two seperate hands and sporting nine fingers in all. The other hand was made of one, but incomplete, and only four fingers gnarled from it. The legs and torso were thankfully concealed beneath tattered brown clothing, but a pulsating neck writhed out of the shirt's collar and ended into a bulbous head constructed of at least six different heads, not counting the borrowed face parts, with scores of black stitches to exaggerate the sickly fusions. One blue eye bulged out while the green eye sank in its socket, the nose shriveled and brown while the gash of a mouth grinned toothlessly, showing dark, mottled gums. The ears sloped oddly on his temples, while a tube nestled in his skull siphoned fluid into his brain from his spine. And all this was not to mention the slightly decomposed state of his body parts, which gave off a foul odor. To say the least, Deekin was horrified.
"Welcome to you, stranger," Umbra greeted politely, not even fazed by this repulsive merging of cadavers. "This one is called Umbra, and he here is Deekin. What would your name be?"
The creature seemed momentarily confused. "Oh... sorry. Halaster's always telling me to watch my manners. My name's Berger. Halaster is my dad."
"Halaster be your dad?" Deekin blinked, making a note of this in his book. "But you is flesh golem, isn't you?"
"What do you mean by that?" Berger drawled, offended. "Do you think I'm lying? I don't lie! Halaster is so my father. He even told me so."
"Sorries," Deekin apologized sincerely as the golem went on.
"Halaster made me. Told me he sewed me together himself," Berger told them proudly. "I helped him run this place. Everyone used to be real nice to me. They used to smile and nod and say: Hello, Berger."
"Yeah, people treats you nice when you got big friends," Deekin nodded, smiling up at Umbra fondly. "That's why Deekin never has to worry when Boss is around."
"But now things ain't so nice," Berger mourned, though the stitches kept his face up in a twisted grin. "Ever since dad got snatched up, the others don't take such a shine to me. Them dark elves is especially bad."
"Halaster is a prisoner?" Umbra ventured, intrigued.
"Deekin writes this down!" Deekin decided, writing this down.
"That's right," Berger avered, shaken his ill-formed fists. "My dad's in the clutches of them... them dark skinned... pointy-eared... silver-haired... no good drow! Now they're after me, too!" Berger stopped as though to catch his breath, which made Deekin wonder if he could breathe. "Ever since they grabbed up my dad, them drow have been trompin' around Undermountain wherever they please. That's not right. Halaster doesn't like people just marching around here. But they can't kill dad, or Undermountain will come crashin' down around their ears. So they keep him alive. And when he gets out, he's going to be mad! Then them drow'll be sorry!"
"You has plan to frees him, maybe?" Deekin wondered, somewhat used to the golem's repugnant exterior by now. Berger scratched his patchwork scalp with a lumpy finger.
"Me? Uh... no." He paused poignantly, brightening. "Wait! I could... no. Oh, I know! I'll just... no. I don't got no plan. I'm not real good at planning."
"Don't you worries," Deekin said reassuringly. "Boss can come up with a plan to save mad wizard. Boss is good at making plans, right Boss?" He looked up at Umbra confidently.
"Yeah!" Berger agreed eagerly, grinning at Umbra. "You look real smart. And tough. I bet you could just smash them drow and rescue my dad easy!"
"Alright," Umbra relented. "This one shall find your father, Berger."
"You will?" Berger beamed. "Yipee! I know you'll do it, too. I can tell just by looking at you."
"See? Boss be great!" Deekin smiled.
"As soon as he's free again, he'll take care of those dark elves!" Berged muttered gleefully to himself. "He'll make them sorry they were mean to me. Them and all the others. They'll all be sorry. Real sorry..." Umbra tapped him on the shoulder, cutting him off. Deekin shuddered; he wouldn't have touched the fetid flesh golem with a ten-foot-pole, himself.
"Where is Halaster being held?" Umbra asked.
"Dad's down on the lower levels. Somewhere. I really don't know where," Berger shrugged, an act that Deekin would have thought would snap his heavy limbs from their loose sockets. "I been spending all my time running from the drow and the rest of the creatures here." Halaster gestured to a door at the far side of the small room they stood in. "You get to the lower levels through that door."
"This one thanks you for your aid in this matter, Berger," Umbra said graciously, starting forth. "Let us be off, then, Deekin?"
"Almost." Deekin scribbled some last-minute details and ran up to her side. "Yep, Deekin ready now, Boss!"
"Farewell, Berger," Umbra said as she opened the door and went through.
"Oh, okay. Well... goodbye, I guess," Berger replied with a wave. "I'll just stay here where it's safe until my dad gets free and puts things back to the way they were."
"Okies," Deekin said, walking through the door. "Bye, Berger." So saying, he shut the door. Berger continued to wave a while after out of sheer boredom. When he finally stopped, the accumulated motion caused his arm to wave without him. Berger grabbed the rebellious arm and forced it back down into place, then closed the impenetrable door again. Sitting down with a grunt, Berger looked around the mostly-empty room he inhabited and sighed. This was shaping up to be boring already. He sure hoped they found Halaster soon...
(Hope you enjoyed this chapter, stay tuned for Chapter Five!)