(A/N: Of all my chapters so far, I like this one the best :) Thanks for the reviews! I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: I am not officially affiliated with Neverwinter Nights in any way. Said franchise is entirely that of BioWare and Atari, and some other people.)
Chapter Eleven
They hadn't gone far before they got to the break in the bridge caused by Ferron's scouts. The gap was at least eight feet wide.
"We isn't really going to jumps across that, is we?" Deekin asked nervously, peeking over the jagged edge. The bridge extended to a platform, barely visible in the distance, and beneath them was only blackness. Deekin picked a small, crumbling piece of stone off the bridge and tossed it into the chasm. It faded off, but there was no echoing clatter of it hitting the bottom. Deekin gulped.
"Boss, you lives in shadows," he remembered, and pointed downward. "You sees anything?"
"Yes," she replied. "Blackness."
"...oh." Deekin thought. "This must be a bottomless pit. Deekin reads abouts them. Deekin be fascinated, if he not be so terrified right now." His eyes were glued to the pit for a while, but slowly drifted to the side as he noticed Valen shuffling around in a leather pouch slung on his weapon belt. The tiefling withdrew a rope, gripped it with both hands and snapped it taut twice to test its resilience, then gave it to Umbra.
"Hold this," he instructed.
"Alright," Umbra consented, sliding her weapons in their scabbards and taking the woven hemp. "Why?"
"Because I'm the only one that can make this jump," Valen answered simply, tying one of the rope's ends above the barb on his tail. So saying, he backed up several steps, then bolted ahead, launching into the air just before he could sprint straight off the edge. Hurling himself as far as he would go - which was quite far, no small thanks to his demonic heritage - Valen smashed his torso into the other side of the bridge and pulled himself all the way up, getting out of the way just as the rock crumbled under the impact and widened the gap. The rope pulled taut at this increase in distance, but Valen's long, whiplike tail extended it just far enough. He winced slightly at the pull on his spine, but signaled that all was well. On the other side, Umbra clutched her end of the rope.
"What now?" she asked.
"Send the kobold across," he called back - not too loudly, lest they alert some dungeon horror.
"So be it," she said, turning her attention to the kobold in question. "Deekin, can you - "
"Shimmies across?" Deekin finished, eyeing the dark abyss below them warily. He reached up and grabbed the rope anyway. "Sure, Boss." Taking a deep breath, he braced his feet against the unstable edge and pushed off with a burst of dust and gravel. His hands alternated grabbing the rope, moving him along fairly quickly. He arrived on Valen's side thirty seconds later, give or take.
"How Boss gets across?" he asked after pausing to catch his breath. Valen was quiet.
"I didn't think of that," he admitted. Before he could, Umbra jumped over the edge, still holding the rope.
"Boss!" Deekin panicked, though he supposed he should know better by now. Falling slack, the rope descended into the pit's endless depths, Valen's tail its only connection to the above. Said tiefling stifled a cry; the sudden strain made his tail feel like it was going to yank out of him. Gritting his teeth, he gripped it with both hands, lessening the pull. Umbra made her way up the rope swiftly, easily swinging up onto the bridge beside the other two. With a scowl, Valen untied the rope and had half a mind to let it fall out of pure spite, but bundled it up and returned it to his pouch instead.
"Are you alright?" he asked Umbra.
"This one is fine," the cowled one avered, striding ahead. "We should not waste time."
"True," Valen nodded, following. Deekin was compelled to write something, but decided against it and followed as well. As they traversed the bridge's length, however, Deekin couldn't help but think he heard chilling echoes from far below the blackness which spread out on either side. He took watching his feet, long-toed and scaly. The bridge's pockmarked stone surface was riddled with hairline cracks that did little to console him. He looked back up ahead, where Umbra was in the lead and Valen was a little too close for Deekin's comfort. He ran ahead and get closer, ignoring that it meant getting closer to Valen. With a smile, he looked up at his Boss's familiar face. The top half was covered by the hood, the lower half frozen in an emotionless expression - but it was familiar. Satisfied, he resumed looking ahead.
The bridge connected to a thick stone platform, which rose up out of the black nothingness below. Either it was as long and bottomless as the pit itself, or at some point further down it was suspended by magic. Regardless, the trio stepped out onto it, pausing and making sure it was safe before continuing on. They'd gone five paces, when a burst of white fire came out of nowhere in front of them.
"None shall pass into the inner sanctum without first speaking the word of passage, as given unto me by the Maker himself," the fire spoke in a high, strange voice. "Speak the word or face the consequences of your ignorance."
"This one knows not the word," Umbra said bluntly. The white flame vanished, its voice lingering just long enough to preach, "Those who do not know the word must be destroyed. Thus sayeth the Maker."
Valen shook his head in exasperation, giving Umbra a look of disapproval and incredulity as he drew his flail. "You know, if you didn't know the word you could have at least guessed!"
"Of what use would that have been?" she asked. Valen started to respond, but was interrupted by a series of loud rumbles that rocked the ground and nearly knocked Deekin over. Getting up, he saw two curious figures approach. They were golems, large, hunched-over and metal, with jointed parts like most, more practical than artistic. They had odd, monkeylike head with blazing blue eyes, and each bore a blue spotlight in the center of its chest. Deekin would have spent more time observing them, but unfortunately, they didn't look friendly.
Umbra's first instinct was to cover her companions and herself with an invisibility spell. The golems didn't look impressed (not that they could have if they tried), reaching through the bubble of shadow and smacking Umbra to the ground. The invisibility spell shattered, but it hadn't done them much good in the first place. The golem raised its hog-sized fist, and slammed it down so hard it created a crater in the ground, narrowly missing Umbra as she rolled out of the way and grabbed her swords.
"I'm free! I'm fr - " Enserric was cut off as Umbra struck the golem with him. "OW! BLOODY HELLS, THAT HURTS!"
"What..." Umbra trailed off. The blow had succeeded in snapping Enserric's blade in half, but the golem bore not even a scratch, and she'd hit it as hard as she could. Meanwhile, fighting the other golem, Valen was having slightly more luck - that is, he'd managed to scratch it. Deekin somehow doubted his skinny little rapier would succeed where Enserric and Valen's well-crafted flail had failed, so instead focused on casting buffing and healing spells on Umbra and Valen while avoiding getting stepped on by the golems.
"Oh, sure, heal the demon!" Enserric shouted at him. "Nevermind the broken - " Umbra slid both swords back into the criss-crossed sheaths on her back before Enserric could finish. Getting a safe distance from the golem, she positioned her hands and muttered spellwords. In response, a fountain of fire erupted on the golem simultaneously from above and below, heating it to insanely high temperatures while Umbra beat out a few embers that had landed on her robe and prepared another spell. While the golem still blazed, it was suddenly beset by a huge blast of electricity. Seconds later, a shower of acid rain joined the attack. Two large balls of fire and a carpet of shadow later, Umbra paused to regain some energy. The fire's arcane fuel diminished and the acid storm dwindled to nothing, clearly showing a significantly blackened golem figure. Seeing this, Deekin breathed a sigh of relief. Then the shadows withdrew.
Not even a scratch; the golem's surface gleamed as brilliantly as new. At the most, the spells had cleaned it. Umbra stood in shock, a perfect target. The golem aimed a punch, but she ducked just in time, backing away and avoiding its attacks as she tried to think.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHH!" Valen shouted as his opponent delivered a tremendous hit to his entire front torso, then another to his back. His armor just barely cushioned the blow. Sprawled out on the ground, Valen shoved to his knees, spat out some blood and tried to get up, but the golem sent him rolling five feet with a well-aimed kick. Reaching him in two steps, the golem raised its foot above the beaten tiefling and prepared the finishing blow...
Then decided it would rather squash a kobold. This caught Deekin off guard, but he was small and nimble enough to evade. He aimed a sonic blast at the construct's knee; the sonic attack jarred the joint slightly, the equivalent of trying to stab an orc with a blunt pencil. In other words, it was good as nothing. The golem brought its foot down to stamp on Deekin, again, and again, and again, missing but getting closer each time. Deekin was running from it as fast as he could, but the golem was surprisingly agile and quick for a construct, especially one so old. A pained groan from a barely conscious Valen reminded Deekin of the tiefling's condition, but at this rate there was no way Deekin could stop long enough to heal him. Deekin suddenly noticed a dark shadow surrounding him, growing larger by the moment. With a mild shriek, he leapt aside just before the golem's foot descended. Relieved, he started to get up - but was stopped by a shooting pain in his tail. Whirling around, he gaped. The golem was stepping on his tail! Deekin grabbed his tail and yanked as hard as he could, but it was no use. He was stuck. The kobold tremored as the golem noticed this, and began to ball its fist...
A light ping noise suddenly resounded. Two more, three more, seven more soon followed, the sounds of rocks pelting the golem's back. Staying in place, the golem swiveled its monkey-head entirely around in time to get a stone in its left eye. The stone-thrower was Umbra.
"Leave him!" she commanded, just avoiding a dire blow from the second golem. "Face this one!" The golem did not understand her words, but it understand that she was slightly more of a threat than the lizard it had by the tail. Lifting its foot and freeing Deekin, the golem turned around and stomped toward Umbra.
"BOSS!" Deekin yelped, broken tail shuddering feebly as he got to his feet and ran toward her. The two golems were advancing on Umbra quickly now, together pressing her to the edge. Umbra backed up until she could back up no more - then leapt backwards off the platform. Possessing no rational thought, the golems plummeted right after.
"BOSS!" Deekin screamed, sprinting to edge.
"UMBRA!" That was Valen's cry, Deekin realized. Valen staggered over to edge as quickly as his injuries would allow. Together, the tiefling and the kobold stared down into the endless pitch.
"She gave herself up for us," Valen whispered. "I don't believe it."
"Deekin believes it," Deekin said sadly.
"Believe what?" Umbra wondered.
There was a long pause as this registered. The other two looked around to see Umbra standing behind them.
"Boss!" Deekin cried gleefully, jumping to his feet. "You be alive!"
"How did you - " Valen stopped and winced at a pain in his insides. "How did you survive?"
"That is not important." She cast a series of healing spells, mending Valen's worst injuries and Deekin's crushed tail.
"Thanks, Boss," he smiled gratefully, rubbing it. "That hurt lots." Valen was quiet as Umbra healed them. At last, he spoke.
"What you did was very noble, Umbra," he said. There was something in his voice Deekin had never heard in it before... respect.
"This one thanks you," she returned.
"Don't," he sighed, getting to his feet and bowing slightly, which must have been difficult even after the healing. "I should be thanking you... and..." He scratched between his horns nervously. "I have been wrong about something. I owe you an apology."
"An apology?" Umbra repeated. "For what?"
Valen pondered for a moment, obviously going over what he wanted to say in his head. "Ever since the Seer foretold your coming, I have resented you. A little." He sighed. "I think... I think it was more because I wanted to be the one who kept the Seer safe. I had been working so long to save the rebels I did not want someone bursting in and taking all the credit. So I convinced myself you could not be trusted, that perhaps the Seer's vision was wrong. And yet, here you have proven yourself to be more than trustworthy. I... am very sorry."
"Thank-you, Valen," Umbra accepted. "This one appreciates your candor."
"I am glad," he smiled. "It has been good to fight at your side so far on this journey. I begin to believe that perhaps we really will win against the Valsharess."
"Perhaps we shall," Umbra agreed. "For now, you two should rest. Then, we may find the Maker."
Valen nodded, lowering himself back into a sitting position. "Of course."
"This one shall keep guard," Umbra noted, turning her back to them. "You may rest your eyes." Deekin started to, until he realized that Valen wasn't. The tiefling was still watching Umbra... and he was still smiling. Eventually he closed his eyes, but Deekin found himself too tense to rest. He pulled out his notebook and started writing, but he couldn't get the way Valen had looked at Umbra off his mind. Two sentences later, he closed his book back up and looked back to Umbra with a sad half-smile. Perhaps it was because not three minutes ago he'd thought her gone - but no, they'd had numerous close calls on their adventures. So why did his heart ache so?
When Valen finished resting, the trio picked themselves up and continued on. At the end of the platform was what a first glance appeared to be a wall, but upon further inspection proved to be a vertically opening gate, which Valen managed to shove down far enough they were able to climb over it, Deekin with some help from Umbra. While grateful for her aid, the kobold couldn't help but feel a little ashamed of needing to be helped with such a trivial thing. His shame was quickly forgotten, however, when he saw the room beyond the door.
Well, it wasn't the room that was so astounding - it was a typical wizard's lab, with shelves of books, chests of scrolls, arcane writings on the floors, the only difference being the chunks of metal and beautifully carved golem parts scattered about the place as opposed to bottles of neon potions and other alchemical resources. No, what truly captured the eye here was the Maker himself. That is, what remained of the Maker: a duergar skull, broad and squat, lined with glittering gems and floating in midair, suspended by brilliant energies that left an imprint on the insides of Deekin's eyelids if he stared too long.
The skull zipped around the room busily, checking here and there, levitating random objects to inspect them and carefully setting them down again, fluttering open book pages and making notes with a quill that seemed to have a life of its own. At last, he noticed - or decided to notice - the intruders to his sanctum, addressing them in a raspy, disembodied voice. Surprisingly, he sounded impatient, rather than malevolent.
"I do not recognize you as one of my creations," he noted. "What manner of creature are you, that would invade my inner sanctum? Who are you, that dares to intrude upon my work?"
"You be the Maker?" Deekin questioned. The skull exuded a sound that might have been a sigh.
"Once I was called Alsigard, known to many as the Maker," he verified, scanning several books which orbited in slow circles around him and making revisions in them even as he spoke. "But now I have transcended the weakness of my flesh and body, and I am not what I once was."
"Yeah, now you is nothing but floating skull," Deekin agreed. "Deekin wonders: you floats all the time? Or maybe sometimes you just rolls around on floor like a ball?" The Maker stopped dead in the middle of his work, letting the books snap closed and return to their shelves.
"What an insolent question," he said stiffly. "No, kobold, I have never once 'rolled.' Do you have any more fatuous inquiries for me, or are you through here?" Deekin blinked.
"Well, first Deekin gots to figures out what 'fatuous' means before he answers you," he decided, opening his own book and jotting something down. The Maker made that sighing sound again, levitating another book and running through the pages with unseen magics.
"We have come to bargain with you," Umbra told him. The Maker had no eyeballs, so Deekin couldn't be sure if he was rudely keeping to his book or looking at Umbra as she spoke (he suspected the former).
"Bargain with me about what?" he questioned bluntly. He didn't seem concerned with this intrusion in the least. Deekin was suddenly reminded of Tymofarrar.
"Your golems wish to be freed," Valen answered.
"Which ones?" asked the Maker.
"The sentient ones," Valen responded.
"Which ones?" the Maker repeated. There was a long silence as the trio looked to each other uncomfortably. "Well?"
"How many are there?" Valen puzzled.
"How many do you think I've made in over half a millenium?" the Maker retorted. "My dungeon is immense and vastly inaccessible. I doubt you've explored even a hundredth of it." Another silence as this sank in.
"Ferron and his followers wish to be freed," Umbra clarified at last. The Maker turned upward thoughtfully.
"Ferron... Ferron... ah, yes! Ferron. Tell him he can go," the skull said, turning back to his work. "No, nevermind. I'll tell him myself. Now leave my sight, won't you?"
"But - " Deekin started.
"You want help in the war against the Valsharess," the Maker stated calmly. "I know. Don't worry, I'll send reinforcements. I may be a reclusive old skull, but I'm not a fool." The skull paused. "Before you go, though... give me that sword of yours."
"Which one?" Deekin asked.
"The talking one, of course!" the Maker scoffed.
"What do you want with him?" Umbra asked cautiously.
"His soul, what else?" the Maker replied. "Such a rare thing, to find a soul fused with metal... he would make a fine golem, perhaps even a perfect golem, and I doubt he's of much use to you broken anyway."
"How you knows he be broken? " Deekin asked.
"With all the noise he's making about it, it would be difficult not to," the Maker said dryly. At his bidding, Enserric floated out of the scabbard, tremoring violently as he ranted.
" - AND IN ALL MY LIFE OR WHATEVER YOU CALL IT, NEVER HAVE I BEEN SO INSULTED! I HAVE WOUNDS TOO, GODS DAMN IT, AND THEY NEED TO BE TENDED TO LIKE ANY OTH - " Enserric cut himself short, noticing where he was. "Ah. What's with the floating skull?"
"I am a demilich," the Maker said haughtily, "not a mere 'floating skull', as you so incognizantly put it. You had best show me some respect, sword, as I am the only one who can create a fully functioning body for you."
"Oh?" Enserric sounded cautiously optimistic. "As good as my old one?"
"Better," the Maker promised.
"Ah," Enserric said. "Dare I ask why you couldn't be bothered to fashion one for yourself?"
"Because I have no need for one," the demilich responded, levitating Enserric over to a table and setting him down. "As I'm sure you can plainly tell. Stay there, and I'll get to you."
"It's not as though I bloody well can go anywhere, is it?" the broken sword grumbled as the Maker returned his attention to the adventurers.
"Now be off with you." And before the trio could say anything else, there was flash of blinding light, and the Maker and his sanctum were gone. Now, the three stood in an unknown part of the open Underdark. There was a third silence, much longer and more confused than the two preceding it. At last, Valen spoke.
"I think this is a good place to set up camp," he remarked.
"Deekin agrees," Deekin nodded. Umbra had no complaints.
"Set up camp" was another way of saying "lay out some blankets and maybe some food we took with us, eat and sleep until we feel like adventuring again." So that's what Deekin and Valen did, while Umbra wandered off somewhere when no one was looking. Valen made a comment about this, but Deekin shrugged and explained to him the Boss's peculiar tendencies. After a while, Valen fell into a slumber. Breathing a sigh of relief, Deekin sneaked out of camp as well.
Umbra hadn't gone far; he found her standing at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the jagged, barren gray plains of the Underdark. Deekin stepped up beside her quietly, and for a while they simply stood there and looked on. Umbra was the first to speak.
"How are you liking it here, Deekin?" she asked him.
"Deekin likes Underdark very well," he replied. "It not much to looks at, but it be even neater than books say it is! We not even be here that long, and look at all the neat stuffs we sees!"
"If you are glad, then this one is glad," she said, resting a hand on his head gently. Deekin smiled. Then, out of nowhere, he asked, "What you sees in Deekin's eyes, Boss?" Umbra studied him for a while.
"This one sees someone she is very fond of," she told him. "Someone very kind, and caring. This one sees her friend." Her face never smiled; her voice smiled for her. Deekin smiled in return.
"Can Deekin sees your eyes, Boss?" he wondered. Umbra was dead silent. Deekin shivered despite himself.
"No," she answered, hand slipping off his head without regard for the horns.
"Why?" he pressed.
"This one cannot."
"But why?"
"You need not know."
"But, Boss - "
"You should return to camp, Deekin," she instructed, turning around and walking away. "Your kind needs sleep."
"Deekin's kind - but BOSS!" Umbra did not respond. She only kept walking, until the darkness enveloped her entirely. Deekin stood in place for a long, silent while before he trudged back to camp.
(Yes, I know I changed the Maker completely. I'm a big fan of liches of any kind, and thought that BioWare gave him a very dull personality. Originally, I was going to stay true to the game, but this version of him popped up while I was writing and I just went along with it :)