SILVERYMOON
Chapter 16
Traveling up the river, hoping for a passage through this mountain range, they had no choice but to stop when they saw a snowstorm coming up over the mountain and heading their way.
Quickly finding a spot to set up the tent, they found themselves trapped inside their tent. Now while a 20 by 20-foot tent sounded big and with eight cots to sleep on, it was. But four adults and one Ember cat were literally trapped inside it while listening to the wind and snow hit their tent and make the walls and roof move.
Rick walked over to the tent flap to take a peek. "Babe, if you open that and let in all that snow, I swear I will make you suffer eventually," Kate warned him.
"I just wanted…" At that point, Rick tried to reason with her. "We could find ourselves buried in snow if we don't look and move."
"Don't you dare ruin our comfortable tent by letting in snow and cold wind. We can get out." Then Kate smiled sweetly at him even while threatening him. "Now, come over here and sit with me so I can hog-tie you and put a gag in your mouth."
"Are these two always like this?" Corimin whispered to Alexis, hopefully only loud enough for her to hear.
"Dad is just being Dad. He does this. Thankfully, it isn't just me reining him in any longer." Alexis was grateful for the help.
Rick sat next to Kate and pouted since he didn't get his way. "I can hear you, you know."
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Come morning, and the snowstorm was gone. And sure enough, they were surrounded by snow and even had a snowbank against the tent on one side. However, getting out was easy enough, and the tent went back into a scrap of cloth and was put away.
One thing about a storm passing was that it cleared up the sky nicely so they could see for miles. Putting their snow goggles in place like always, they shifted back into their Demon look, or in Corimin and Kate's cases, activated an illusion. The only real problem with this illusion was that if anyone looked closely, they would notice that they didn't flap their wings, but they could still fly.
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Patches was in Alexis's arms since he couldn't fly himself. "MEOW!"
"Where?" Alexis asked him.
"MEOW!"
"Hang on, guys, and land somewhere," Alexis called out and followed her dad and Kate down to the ground. Once they were down, Alexis moved her Goggles from around her neck and put them over her eyes.
"Patches is right. There's something big flying out there. I'm talking enormous, and it's white with a large wingspan." Alexis took them off and handed them over to Kate. Alexis pointed, and Kate looked in that direction.
"OH SHIT! That's a Dragon! A white one, and he's huge. Worse, he's coming this way." Kate took them off and handed them back to Alexis to put around her neck.
"Here it comes, think good thoughts, or maybe Evil thoughts since we're all Demons." Kate put her hand on her wand just in case, hoping everyone else did, too.
They watched what was clearly a White Dragon overfly them, make a wide turn, and come back and land some distance away. In his mind, that was just far enough to escape or breathe on this bunch if necessary.
"Demons here?" He knew what they were but not why they were here. He was curious and couldn't resist.
"The EYE sent us," Rick answered, forgetting that Kate was supposed to do all the talking.
Kate warned it by threatening it. "Demon Lord dispatched us to find something. I suggest you do not interfere."
"Demon Lord called the Eye?" Granted that he knew very few Demon Lords, but why be called the Eye?
"One red and one black. She rules the 467th layer of the Abyss," Rick explained, still ignoring that only Kate was supposed to do the talking.
"Do not interfere unless you happen to like pain for all eternity," Kate warned it yet again.
He was there to defend his territory. "You are on my mountain."
"We don't care what your territory is. We will be crossing this mountain range with you alive or with you dead," Kate threatened it once again. "Make your choice."
Instead of running away, he started laughing. He knew what was on the other side of this mountain and was betting either they were dead or these four were dead. Either way, he would swoop in and take away all the treasure he possibly could, and would add it to his hoard.
"Death becomes you." He laughed again and jumped, beating his wings hard and going over the side till he had enough speed to gain at least some altitude to fly back from whence he came.
Corimin began breathing again. "I thought sure he was going to eat all of us."
Kate turned and punched Rick in the arm. "What did I say about only me doing the talking, Castle?"
"I wasn't listening," Rick said since he might remember something about that, but he didn't.
"You do that again, and I swear, you'll be walking with a limp. Got it?" Kate punched him in the arm again to reinforce her point.
"What do you think, Patches?" Alexis kissed his head.
"MEOW!"
That had Alexis bursting out laughing over what he had said.
"Do I want to know?" Rick was sure she was laughing at him or about him because of Patches.
"Nope," Alexis told him as she continued to laugh.
"Well, at least we know acting like Evil Demons worked on him, so maybe it'll work on the people at the mine. And this time, keep your mouth shut, Castle. For just once, do as you're told." Kate knew she was fighting a hard battle. Getting Castle to do anything she wanted was damn near impossible.
Rick thought to himself that he would think about it but wasn't going to make any promises. However, they needed to get moving now that the Dragon was gone, and boy, was he mixed about that. For one, it was a real live Dragon, and that was so cool! Yet the Dragon was much bigger than that Green Dragon, and its mouth was a lot bigger and full of larger, sharper teeth. But IT TALKED!
"So, how big was he?" Alexis queried as her dad jumped and took off.
"Too big for me," Corimin offered and followed Alexis after Kate was airborne.
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They had made it to the far side, and now they just needed to find this mine. However, the sun was setting fast. That had Alexis and Corimin landing next to her dad and Kate. "So what happened to the sun?"
"We're very far north. Think Alaska, where the sun lasts for just a few hours, and the darkness lasts for weeks if not months at a time," Rick responded. "Alexis, you remember that movie about that little Alaskan town, don't you? It was attacked by a Coven of Vampires because the sun never came up. I can't remember the name at the moment."
"Please tell me you aren't thinking that where we're going is full of Vampires!?" Corimin pleaded.
Alexis rubbed his arm. "Don't listen to Dad, it's just a movie. It's not full of vampires."
"Movie?" Once again, these people talked about things of which he knew nothing.
Alexis glared at her father. "Just set up the tent, Dad, and stop trying to scare us."
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Once again, being in the tent was a much more comfortable place to be this far north. Except it was very boring. It was dark and freezing outside. There were no cards, no TV, no movies, no fire on the inside of the tent, and no cooking dinner because there were no trees up here this high. So, it was a cold dinner.
More to the point, they all slept in the same space, so having sex was out of the question. Though as nice as it was inside the tent, no one really wanted out of their sleeping bags.
Come morning, they found their tent partially buried in snow and did have to dig their way out. However, once they were finally out, they just reduced the tent to a scrap of cloth, picked it up, and put it away.
"Shift and activate your illusions and let's find this mine," Rick told everyone. Mostly he wanted out of the cold. "And remember your goggles for snow blindness."
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Rick, and Alexis, who was carrying Patches like always, were out front now. Corimin was next, followed by Kate as a swarm of bats. Kate went where everyone else did because she couldn't talk like that, so she had no say.
However, she did land where the others did, and the first thing she spotted chilled her soul. Granted, her ring and the winter clothing that everyone was back to wearing helped keep her more than comfortable, though the air she was breathing was anything but warm.
"What is that?" Kate meant WHAT was that, since it clearly wasn't alive now, and mostly, only the head was exposed, along with a small portion of the neck, with the rest encased in rock and ice.
"My money is on a Tyrannosaurus Rex," Rick said since it was largely head, thanks to the rest of the body being in the rock.
"And mine is on it being a Dragon," Alexis countered. "But, that's not why we stopped." She pointed, and Kate looked at what everyone else could see.
"It's an open-pit mine at the very bottom of the gorge," Rick told them as he looked it over. It was huge at the top, and it got progressively smaller as it went down. Rick could even see buildings and smoke from fireplaces, and if he looked hard enough, he saw people moving. Though from here, they looked more like ants.
Alexis lifted her Goggles to get a closer look. "Um, most of them are weird-looking. They're all three to maybe four feet tall, with white fur that has icicles hanging from it. They have long arms and short legs and aren't wearing a whole lot of anything. Though a few have tools, and they're digging. Most carry a load on their backs up the long road to the top or back down again. There has to be hundreds of them.
"You know what they kinda look like, except for the white fur? Goblins," Alexis told them and kept looking. "I've got someone else. Make that a few someone elses They're a lot taller; no clothes at all. They have white bodies with black backs, arms, and extremely short legs. And they remind me of penguins. Only with arms and more human heads. Very weird-looking."
The next thing Alexis knew, the Goggles were taken off her head by Kate because she wanted to see for herself. "She's right. I've never seen anything like it." Kate was even hoping she never did again. "They seem to be in charge. More than one has a whip and is using it." Kate went to hand them back to Alexis, but Rick intercepted them and looked for himself.
Rick focused on the buildings, though. "I've got many buildings, but most look like housing of two different types. Small and run down, bigger, but still a little run down. One very large building that the Goblins look to be taking all the ore to and back out again, along with another large building that might be a warehouse.
"It's interesting. All of the buildings look like stone. Not an inch of wood anywhere. I can't even figure out what they used to make the roofs. Mostly white, though." Rick thought they might be covered in snow.
Corimin spoke up. "My gold is on ice with arches made from rock." He was almost certain even if he wasn't clearly seeing what the others were yet. "Think about it. Where would you get trees up here? They're digging in rock, so why not use it? Pour some water carefully, let it freeze, and you've got yourself a roof."
Rick was buying it. "I think he just might be right. I've got a building with penguins going in and out of it. I say we start with that building." Rick had the Goggles taken from him by Kate so she could look again.
"We can start there." Kate gave his arm a warning slap. "This time, I do the talking, Castle. Got it?"
"What if I have something to say?" He thought he could help.
"Then whisper it to me. Do. Not. Give. Us. Away. We are Evil Demons, here to take over because The EYE demands it. Who we want is whoever is in charge of this place. Someone has to be in charge around here. The biggest, baddest penguin." That was Kate's thinking.
Rick grumbled till Alexis sided with Kate. "We're Evil, Dad. We need to look and sound Evil. That means our winter clothes come off now, and we store them in our backpacks. Keep your wands and staff at the ready, only not in hand. We need to sound domineering and in charge. Maybe even kill someone to prove our point. Or at least blow a leg off," Alexis said.
"Fine." Rick still didn't like it. He might be a Demon, but he knew he wasn't Evil. But suddenly, they all were. Granted, he had agreed to this plan before they got here.
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So far, their plan had worked perfectly. The four had landed and easily dominated a Penguin, one that would take them to who was in charge of this mine. They had all noticed that the Goblins had barely given them any notice. They just kept doing their jobs carrying ore into a building and back out empty and head back down.
"My Lord, visitors." The Penguin bowed deeply and shuffled backward on his short legs.
The four watched this monster turn to face them. It was eight feet tall and weighed at least 300 pounds, if not more. It had noticeably bony or prominent supraorbital ridges above its eyes. The eyes were a bright green and glowed a little.
Its skin was a combination of gray and brown and was extremely tough (often compared to stone). One of the most distinctive features was the darker (often vertically symmetrical) patches of skin that covered its entire body. They were not tattoos.
Its skin was littered with bony growths called lithoderms that were roughly the size of a coin, and appeared like studded pebbles on its arms, shoulders, torso, or head.
Then it said, "XagΩ ncum!" And it literally looked down at them. To Rick and more to Kate, it sounded as though that it was insulting them.
"It just called us Demon Scum," Alexis whispered to them.
Since Kate was going to do the talking, she had to use English or what this land called Common. Kate did her best to sound commanding. "We are here to enforce the rule of our Demon Lord, The EYE. You will bow, slave!"
However, while it seemed that it understood her, it merely chuckled. "I ler'k irnraj fe xagΩ nbog!"
Kate didn't need Alexis to translate that. She could hear what it meant in the tone of his voice, so she tried again. "You will follow our orders or The EYE will have your soul."
Instead, now it began laughing. "I jutt vuh aok ueoj xayjkn irx yyk jatt feruwdk aj rajma fdag fe peehdyarwjuf."
"It wants to eat our hearts or feed them to someone called Qoophaengrik," Alexis whispered to them. Alexis decided to take over this conversation and used her Charm ability.
"You will follow our orders," Alexis told it.
That thing heard her over and over again. It shook its head and ignored her command. "Xua xagΩ nbog!"It reached for a massive, double-bladed battle axe to cut the four of them in to pieces and carve out their hearts.
Kate didn't need a translation. Things were not going as planned, but she had an idea. So Kate shifted into a swarm of bats and encircled it, biting again and again. She quickly changed back, bit it on the upper arm, and started drinking.
"WHAT THE…!?" Corimin hadn't seen her do that before. Change into bats, yes, but bite someone, no.
Kate didn't want to kill it, only weaken it. However, Rick didn't bat an eye and turned on the Penguin still in the room. Rick tried to dominate him with his Incubus skill, and said forcefully, "KNEEL!" And he watched him kneel on the ground.
Kate stopped drinking and looked at Alexis. "Now try." It was short a lot of blood, so it may be more susceptible to being charmed.
But, Alexis knew her skill would fail because she needed at least twelve hours for the first attempt to wear off. However, she did have the Staff of Charming that they hadn't sold yet. So she took it out and used it instead.
"You will knell before your Master." Alexis commanded and was somewhat astonished that it actually worked. It knelt on one knee. "Now what?"
"How did she do that?" Corimin wanted answers.
Alexis tried to calm him. "Not now, Cor. Please, I'll explain later. Now is not the time."
"MEOW!"
"You'll explain now!" Corimin countered.
Kate had no choice but to break it to him. "You know that Alexis is a Lawful Good Succubus. What you don't know is that I'm a Lawful Good Vampire. But I don't happen to be an undead. I have a heartbeat, unlike your Undead. We're not from your Realm, and where we're from, we are different. We're not Evil. In fact, we fight Evil of all kinds."
The color drained from his face briefly and then he flushed and turned red. "Vam… Vampire." Corimin immediately turned on Alexis. "YOU KNEW!?"
"Yes, of course, I knew. Kate is more mother than my real mother ever was." Alexis had learned to hate Meredith.
"Oh, Pumpkin..." Rick didn't want her to hate her mother. Meredith loved her, but she didn't know how to show it.
"Save it, Dad. Look, we're different, okay? To us, all of you are different. We don't know who is good and who is evil. To us, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and others are all fantasy. None of them exist. You don't exist, Cor. But I love you. I don't care that you're half Celestial, I love you," Alexis told him and reached out to touch him. But, much to her dismay, he recoiled a little. Alexis groaned. "Not this again. I thought we got past me being a Demon. You know I'm not Evil. I thought you loved me." Alexis looked at him and watched his emotions go all over the place as they played out on his face.
She sighed and focused on what else was happening. "We need to put it to use. I don't know how long this is going to last." Alexis had used the Staff instead of her skill. She meant whatever it was who was kneeling before them now.
"We have to find this processing space and get into their warehouse that houses this process metal." Rick got on track which for him was a minor miracle.
"You charmed him, command him. Same for you, babe. The Penguin needs to come with us," Kate told the two of them. "And find out this one's name. We need it to tell the Lady and remember that other name and find out what or who he is." They had work to do.
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"He says Qoophaengrik is an Ancient, Colossal-sized Red Dragon. And that this is his mine. This guy's name is Ergmith Stormrunner Geaneaku. He's something called a Goliath, and I don't think he means our Goliath.
"Thankfully, this Dragon isn't presently here. He will be here tomorrow so they can bleed him to process the metal for him. All this metal belongs to him. He brought in after conquering them over three thousand Ice Goblins along with these Penguins and there are over 300 of them.
"The Goblins are slaves that do the mining and all the work. The Penguins are their masters and make sure they do the work. Our friend here makes sure the Dragon is happy with the progress," Alexis explained after talking to him.
"Tomorrow." Rick didn't like the sound of that.
"We need to do this now and get out of here," Kate decided. "Get him to take us there and have him order everyone out," Kate told Alexis.
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After watching all the Penguins but their one charmed and dominated Penguin run out of the building, they looked the place over.
"I recognize most of this," Rick stated. "Those big barrels get loaded with ore. They spin, and stones inside pound the ore into powder. The powder gets dumped into these floaters filled with water. They use coal under them to heat the water so that it doesn't freeze. Then they skim off the metal they want for processing into a metal they can use.
"That takes place over there. All of those boilers are heated using coal. This mine isn't just an Arandur mine but also a coal mine. They want the Arandur but use the coal to heat what they needed heated in this frozen place." Rick thought he understood the process.
"We need to destroy this place. Plant that Acorn, and let's get out of here," Kate said since she wanted nothing to do with an Ancient Colossal Red Dragon. That little Green one had been bad enough, not to mention that much larger White one. This one sounded even worse.
But Rick had an idea. "Not yet. Corimin, come with me. We're going to the Warehouse first."
"Why!?" Kate thought he must be out of his mind. She wanted out of there.
"This metal is valuable, right? You count every gold piece because we're not making much money yet. So, we fill our Portable Hole with this stuff and sell it. Maybe our business doesn't have to be a big success," Rick explained.
"Come on, help me fill up our Portable Hole with this metal." Rick turned to head for the Warehouse and waited for Corimin to join him.
Kate opened her mouth to stop him but closed it. She decided he had a point. Yes, they got paid to do this, but why not steal from an Evil Red Dragon before he got here and escape?
"What now, Kate?" Alexis inquired.
"Our mini volcano might not take out this entire place." Kate paced while thinking what to do. "What if we use our wands and destroy the outermost edge with those and then plant our Acorn and leave as fast as we can? We won't be killing anyone since no one will be in this building." She waited to see what Alexis thought.
That had Alexis looking around. "Might work. You can fly faster than us inside, so after we fire off a number of lightning bolts and fireballs, you can fly into the middle, plant the Acorn, and fly back out again better than either Dad or I can. Then we leave back the way we came."
"Sounds like we wait for Castle and Corimin. Will he be okay? We've shocked him again." Kate was worried about him.
"I don't know. I honestly don't know. Cor grew up here. To him, all Demons are Evil. Vampires are undead and just as Evil. I think it's because he loves me that we got this far. How do we convince him that you and Dad aren't Evil either and are just as nice? I don't know yet." Alexis was worried that she was about to lose her boyfriend. She loved him so much now.
"It will take us another three or more days to reach Mithral Hall to get our horses and another three days to make our way home. So I guess we have that long to try and get him to understand.
"I'm so sorry, Alexis." Kate walked up to her and hugged her. "It was all I could think of." She felt like all of it was her fault.
"Cor had to find out eventually, Kate. At least he's stuck with us for the next six or more days." Alexis knew she had a lot of work in front of her in order to try to keep her boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Rick and Corimin found that this place had a lot of that metal. It was already bars that were the same size as the gold bars that Rick had seen in movies. All of it had a silver-blue color with a green reflective radiance to it.
It was a little tedious, but one bar at a time got picked up and placed carefully into the Portable Hole. It looked like cloth, and Rick didn't want to rip it and ruin it.
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Rick and Corimin were back. Corimin had learned while helping Rick that yes, he was also a real Demon, just not a Demon from this Realm. None of them were Evil as he had been taught to believe. They were different. Yes, Kate had a heartbeat because she was alive. She wasn't an Undead.
Alexis came up to him and rubbed his arm up and down. "Cor, you okay, babe?"
"I… I don't know." He truly didn't. He was literally in shock yet now, only his love for Alexis was keeping him here and sane.
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Alexis's idea was put to use. They used all three wands and Corimin's staff to fire a number of lightning bolts and fireballs to destroy the edges of this place. Then they raced outside and let Kate fly in while she was a swarm of bats, plant the Acorn and fly back out again. That was followed by running and jumping, heading for safety, and finally home if the rest went well. They were still very far north, surrounded by ice and snow.
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Items made primarily of Arandur automatically succeed in all item-saving throws vs. fall, normal fire, cold, and electricity. They receive a +3 bonus to all item-saving throws vs. acid, crushing blow, disintegration, magical fire, and lightning. Arandur also partially absorbs magic missile energy pulses; folk who wield a sword or shield made of Arandur or wear Arandan armor take ld2 (to a minimum of 1) fewer points of damage per magic missile bolt directed at them.