SILVERYMOON
Chapter 29
Alexis – Sorceress
Robe of the Inferno
Prestigious Bedroll
Heward's Handy Haversack
Riding Boots
Staff of Charming – 48 charges remaining (Rick is carrying this one for her)
Staff of Many Wands (More rod than staff)
Staff of Power – 25 charges remaining
Wand of Lightning Bolt – 41 charges remaining
Wand of Cure Light Wounds – 31 charges remaining
Wand of Magic Missiles – 33 charges remaining
Wand of Detect Magic – 39 charges remaining
Wand of Color Spray – 39 charges remaining
Wand of Web – 45 charges remaining
Wand of Fireball – 50 charges remaining
Bandolier across her chest holding all of her wands
Wand of Fireball x3 – 50 charges remaining each – placed into Rod of Many Wands
Metamagic rod, Maximize, lesser – 50 charges remaining
Dagger with Ghost Touch and Weakening
Ring of Regeneration
Rick – Warlock
Monk's Belt
Prestigious Bedroll
Gloves of Eldritch Admixture
Heward's Handy Haversack
Wand of Lightning Bolt – 29 charges remaining
Dagger with Ghost Touch and Shock
Ring of Regeneration – Always worn
Ring of Protection +3 (wedding ring) – Always worn
Ring of Animal Friendship
Kate – Rogue
Ring of Water Breathing
Ring of Invisibility
Ring of Regeneration – Always worn
Ring of Protection +3 (Wedding ring) – Always worn
Belt of Many Pouches (meant to hold all her magical rings that she isn't wearing)
Prestigious Bedroll
Oath Bow + 3 – Composite Short
Heward's Handy Haversack
Cloak of Charisma +4
Rogue's Vest
Wand of Fireball – 21 charges remaining
Dagger with Ghost Touch and Sacred
Common Items
Portable hole
Daern's Instant Tent
Everfull Mug
Everlasting Feedbag x 2
Weekly Food Bags x 4
Figurine of Wondrous Power, Serpentine Owl
Figurine of Wondrous Power, Bronze Griffon
Figurine of wondrous power, Obsidian Steed
Corimin – Sorcerer
Staff of Power – 22 charges left
Robe of Archmagi – White
Heward's Handy Haversack
Bag of Holding Type II
Prestigious Bedroll
Ring of Invisibility
Several potions in his Bag of Holding
Ghared – Battlesmith
Prestigious Bedroll
Heward's Handy Haversack
+3 Throwing War Hammer with returning
Adamantine Breast Plate +3
Mithral Tower Shield +3 with Ghost Touch
Bag of Holding Type IV
Boots of the Mountain King, Greater
Personal Oasis
Ring of Evasion
Durgeddin – BattleSmith
+4 Double Bladed Axe with Dancing and Ghost Touch – with his mark on it
+1 Dagger with Defending
+4 Mithral chain shirt
Boots of Speed
Heward's Handy Haversack
Bag of Holding Type V
Magic Bedroll
Ring of Regeneration
Ring of Spell Turning
Wand of Stoneskin – 41 charges remaining
Iron Horn of Valhalla
Rope of Climbing
Vest of Resistance +4
Gem of Elemental, Earth – 3 of them
Eslor – Cleric
Staff of Healing – 41 charges remaining
+3 Celestial Armor
+2 Heavy Mace with Destruction
Heward's Handy Haversack
Bag of Holding Type II
Wand of Cure Light Wounds – 39 charges remaining
Ring of Elemental Command, Earth
Strand of Prayer Beads – Lesser
Several magical Scrolls
Several potions in her Bag of Holding
Fiona – Druid
Staff of the Woodlands – 44 charges remaining
Druids Vest
Boots of Striding and Springing
Bag of Holding Type III
+3 Scimitar made of Cold Iron
+2 Mithral Chain shirt
Magic Bedroll
Various spells on scrolls
A few potions in her Bag of Holding
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Seven people were on camels bought in Sundabar after selling their horses. They were pulling two camels carrying extra hay, water, food, and various other supplies.
Rick twisted around on his mahawi, a camel saddle, studying the landscape."You know, I think we camped here last time," he said since it looked familiar. At some point tomorrow, they would eventually step out into the Desert. They were already beginning to feel the heat of the day and the chill at night.
"We have," Ghared agreed. "From here, we went sort of north to reach the hills. This time we go south out into the Desert. It took five to six days to reach the southern tip of the previous mountain range and another four to five days to the northern tip of the western half of The Scimitar Spires. Who knows how long to find what we are trying to find."
"It will be a challenge," Durgeddin admitted. "We may even see a caravan heading east, or west or both."
"They will be suspicious of us," Ghared mentioned. "Always on the lookout for bandits."
"They'll like us. Who can resist my magnetic personality?" Rick joked with them.
"And you married him?" Fiona teased them. So far, Rick and Kate fought like a married couple. You could feel the love for the other under the teasing.
"Don't remind me," Kate said and rolled her eyes. Rick could still be a bit of a jackass at times.
"At least Patches and Night are finally getting along," Alexis pointed out since both were lying there totally alert and always on guard duty. They were doing it side by side now. It had taken all the way from the Citadel to here to accomplish that.
"MEOW!"
"WOOF!"
Hearing them, Alexis and Fiona laughed since they had understood what their familiars had just said. Now did Patches and Night understand what the other had said? That was still a good question.
"I still don't know what Patches says," Corimin admitted. The young man may travel with them frequently and love Alexis a great deal, but that didn't mean he understood Patches like she did.
"You'll catch on." Alexis took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently. "I wonder if we will find our Dragon? Thin lives out here somewhere."
"We do, and he's liable to want one of our camels," Corimin warned her.
"I will regale him with my charm and witty stories," Rick offered since he had done it last time and still had many stories to tell him.
"He liked his stories. Go figure." Kate rolled her eyes again. Still, it might be nice to add a Dragon, provided he didn't eat one of their camels.
"Thin liked my stories," Rick contended. "At least someone around here does." Rick looked at Kate and stared at her through narrowed eyes.
"And before these two start a fight, I'm going to walk around with Patches. It's been too easy so far. No Orcs or anyone. I feel like our luck is about to run out." Alexis got up and took Patches with her.
"Wait for me, I'm coming." Corimin got to his feet and hurried to join her.
"Count me in. Come on, Night, let's look around a bit, stretch our legs." Fiona got up to join those three.
"We don't really fight all that much. It's just that we don't see eye to eye all the time," Kate assured them.
"Married couple." Ghared had seen it before with her married friends.
"But we do think a lot alike," Rick insisted. When they got going, it was like one could read the other's thoughts.
"That's true, we do. When Rick isn't off dreaming up Aliens, Zombies, Ghosts, or other things that don't exist or at least didn't exist." Kate had learned fast that while Aliens were still off the list, everything else wasn't. This Realm truly was different. They still didn't know exactly where they were or how they had gotten here.
"Undead. Nasty creatures, all of them. The dead should stay dead, not come back as Undead. The only thing worse is ORCS!" Durgeddin snarled. He had a marked hatred of Orcs that they all heard in his voice.
"The Undead have simply lost themselves," Eslor submitted. "Though he is right, they should not have come back. Undead is no way to live. Present company excluded, of course. I still have an issue understanding how you can be a Vampire and yet not be an Undead Evil Vampire. Your world must be very different."
"It is." Kate granted her that. She even missed parts of it and likely always would.
"Buildings so tall that you couldn't walk to the top. You could fly in airplanes that went so fast that no one here would believe us. Our world had a moon in the sky – another planet – and we had visited that planet. There's no air out there, just nothing; it's cold and full of radiation. Probes sent out to the stars." Rick waved his hand at the night sky.
Kate tried to explain some more. "It was also full of trash and hatred. What we were willing to do to each other was completely Evil. There aren't that many of me, and what few there are remain hidden. An exceedingly small number of us are Evil, just not me. I actually fought against that Evil. My parents taught me differently. Then I was converted and kept my beliefs." Kate loved Rick, so talking was becomingmore effortless for her.
"Then she met me, and she loved me the second she set eyes on me," Rick boasted.
"You were an insufferable jackass, is what you were. You poked your nose into my personal life every chance you got. Then somehow, you became useful. I'm still not sure when you figured out I was a real Vampire, not this place's Vampire, but similar.
"I was just beginning to like you, and you left with your second wife." Kate kept talking far more than usual.
"You chose Demming over me," Rick said, as he gritted his teeth. It was still a touchy subject for him. "You wanted him, you could have him. Even now I'm not sure what you saw in that idiot; he had the brain capacity of a pea." Rick was still sure Demming was a complete MORON! They both heard snickering over that comment.
"I was a Vampire and couldn't fall in love with you. I was doomed, so I used Demming to drive you away. And it worked too until you came back. You always came back and tried to insert yourself into my personal life. That drove me nuts!
"How was I supposed to protect you from me if you kept getting involved in my personal life? But then something changed." Kate stopped and reflected on just when that happened.
"I loved the idea that you were a Vampire, a real-honest-to-God Vampire. Like you stood a chance of getting rid of me after that. You were always worth fighting for, Kate, after we finally got past Demming," Rick told her.
"And Ellie Monroe. She was an actor, and you fell for her ploy hook, line, and sinker. She played you like an expert," Kate countered since that woman was still a sore spot. Just when she was beginning to like him, he went and took that witch to bed with him.
"And yet you two ended up together," Eslor commented.
"Things had to change. I needed to be different, to make myself different, and make changes to my life. I couldn't stay a 20-year-old kid full of hormones all my life, not if I wanted to win Kate over," Rick admitted.
"We reached an agreement. Imagine my surprise when I found out about him. I thought I was keeping a secret. His was even bigger. Add Alexis, and I didn't know what to believe." Kate was still amazed at that. "There I was, fighting against falling in love with him because I'm a Vampire, only to find out he had a bigger secret." Kate shook her head.
"A Demon and a Vampire." Durgeddin, too, shook his head. "In this Realm you two should be hated, hunted down, and killed. Yet you two, well three, really, are so different." He was even associating with a Demon and a Vampire.
"There are such things as Redeemed Demons," Eslor admitted. "I never actually met one before. I've heard stories. It is hard to do, to change the core belief of a person from pure Evil to one of Good. Yet you two are not actually redeemed. Neither of you started out Evil."
"You three are going to have to be careful. Redeemed or not, most people will not believe that you are good. To them, Redemption is an impossibility, let alone growing up being good," Durgeddin warned them.
Rick was quick to say,"We know."
"Trust us, we know. Isn't there something similar about Elves and Dwarves?" Kate questioned them. "I've heard stories."
"They're true," Ghared admitted.
"Elves are all regal and walk around with the complete surety that they are better than everyone else. We Dwarves dig in the ground. Two opposing views. Not real war, but our two societies may never see eye to eye," Durgeddin confirmed.
"One lives in the clouds while the other is dirty," Rick said and saw two nodding heads.
"Well, we don't. Didn't grow up that way and am not about to change now. And we have real cause not to think that way. Demons and Vampire. Our Realm wasn't perfect, far from it, in fact. But we have seen what that kind of thinking can lead to," Kate offered. She liked these two. Maybe they weren't typical Dwarves, but she really liked them.
"We have enough knowledge to kill everyone in minutes, literally everyone and everything. Leaving the world a burning ball of radioactive dust. Real hatred is an incredibly bad thing. Don't trust them if you like, but genocide, where you wipe out an entire race, is the definition of Evil," Rick said grimly.
"He's right. Our Realm has that capability. We've lived with what we're capable of doing for a long time now. To know that one wrong act just might cause it is a frightening thing." Kate saw the look of shock on their faces.
Alexis and the others were back. "All right, what have these two been telling you now?" She didn't like the looks on their faces. Alexis was sure her dad and Kate were to blame.
"They got us talking about Nukes," Rick told her.
Alexis shuddered. "OH, THAT! Pray to any and all Gods that you never develop that capability. That's scary, really scary. Once that's out of Pandora's box, you can never get it back in again.
"Personally, I don't want to go back. I like it here." Alexis stepped in closer to Corimin after she said that.
"We can't, so it doesn't matter. But I really do like Silverymoon. I've never seen a city like it," Kate added. Though if going back for a visit was possible, she would do it just to see her dad, Lanie, and others.
"I prefer the wilderness myself. Cities are too confining. There are walls around them for a reason," Fiona said as she petted Night.
"I guess we get to agree to disagree," Ghared offered. She liked Mithral Hall a lot and its walls, as did Durgeddin. Rick, Kate, and Alexis knew they didn't like being underground like the Dwarves apparently did. Eslor was equally happy living in Silverymoon.
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"Well, this looks familiar." With Patches in her lap, Alexis was out in front when she reached the threshold that led into the Desert. From here on out, it would be all sand, soft sand, hard sand, or perhaps even quicksand. There wasn't much vegetation in sight.
"South," Ghared pointed as she stopped next to Alexis. "As of now, this is what we will see. Fiona!" Ghared called out.
"And as we agreed, you and Night are out in front from now on. We go that way as much as possible," Ghared told Fiona when she joined them.
"Keep in mind that our last time out here, we ran across a Brass Dragon. He's very friendly, though he did warn us that a Blue Dragon, which is Evil, is also out here somewhere," Alexis reminded her. "Along with a friendly Fire Elemental. After that, it was all bad."
"Noted. Come on, Night, let's do our job. We have a long ways to go." Fiona got her camel moving as her familiar trotted out in front of her and kept his eyes and ears open.
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Their first two days in the sand were uneventful if you could call baking in the spring sun and then freezing come nightfall uneventful. Granted, life in the tent was pretty good since it perfectly altered the inside temperature each evening.
There was just one problem with that. Who was on watch while everyone else was sleeping? It got terribly cold and the only two that didn't complain about it were Patches and Night. Everyone had winter clothing, so that helped, and Rick, Kate, and Alexis had Rings of Warmth, so they were taking turns staying up every night.
Because of that, the three of them were outside with Patches and Night. They carried everything but their backpacks and everything in them.
"Anything, Patches?" Alexis queried because she wasn't seeing anything. Putting on her Goggles still didn't produce anything.
"MEOW."
Alexis heard him say that he saw something. "WHERE!?"
"MEOW!" Patches took off running followed closely by Night. It had Alexis looking that way. What she saw had her concerned. It was a little far out but getting closer.
Finally, Alexis spotted them and didn't like what she saw. "PATCHES, NIGHT, COME BACK NOW!" Alexis pulled out her spare Wand of Fireball. She had three in her Rod of Wands, but she only wanted one.
"COME BACK RIGHT NOW, YOU TWO!" Alexis yelled at them. Relieved, she watched them turn around and come running back. They were still too far out to know precisely what they were. Only that there were three of them.
Alexis soon found Durgeddin next to her with just his enormous Axe in hand and not much else save for what he wore to bed. "What have you got?"
"Not sure. See for yourself." She took off her Goggles and handed them over to him.
"Interesting," Durgeddin commented. "I would say Zombie, but something is off. These guys must be 15 feet tall with their hands practically dragging in the sand. I'm willing to say Undead."
Just then, Patches and Night showed up. "Go wake everyone, Patches." Alexis thought if there were three that they did see, how many didn't they see?
Kate was out next with not much save her dagger and one Wand of Fireball. "What's up?"
"Zombies, we believe. Look behind us. Patches, go with Kate," Alexis told him." She watched Kate jog that way with Patches right on her heels.
"These three are not in a hurry," Durgeddin mentioned just as Ghared showed up carrying only her Hammer. "Kate is behind us; look elsewhere."
"On it." Ghared took off running just as Fiona and Eslor showed up.
"WOOF!"
"Zombies? Out here?" Fiona was speechless for a moment.
Alexis heard Patches "MEOW!"
"Three behind us?" Alexis translated.
"Night, come with me." Fiona ran in a totally different direction.
"I'll take the opposite direction," Eslor volunteered. All she had was her mace and Holy Symbol.
"Pumpkin?" Rick showed up with just his dagger and a Wand of Lightning Bolt.
"Zombies in front and Zombies behind us," Durgeddin told him tersely.
Now Rick used to love the idea of Zombies, but that was before they became all too real and wanted to eat his brains.
"THREE OVER HERE!" Eslor yelled.
"THREE OVER HERE AS WELL," Ghared shouted.
"We're surrounded?" Rick could only tell by where the yells came from.
"I can't wait any longer," Alexis announced. They were moving slowly, but they were getting too close for comfort. So Alexis launched a Fireball at these three.
Immediately after it blew up, they heard another one behind them, followed by the one to their left, and then Ghared hollered for a Wand of Fireball. All she had was her Hammer.
"GO! If these get back up, we can handle it," Durgeddin told Alexis, who instantly took off at a run. Just as she did, they all heard a Fireball behind them and the other from one side.
Durgeddin and Rick were a bit amazed as all there began to get up. "Fireball?" Durgeddin asked Rick.
"Lightning Bolt is all I have," Rick told him and decided to fire one bolt that struck one target, and he fell. "Two more?" Rick asked him.
"Do it." Durgeddin fervently hoped it was enough. Otherwise, he would be in hand-to-hand combat with just his Axe. Definitely not what he wanted.
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"What are they?" Kate was with everyone else looking at three of them. All twelve of them were down. They looked like Zombies save for the size of them. Oddly the skin was literally peeling off of them.
"I've heard of them but never actually seen one before," Eslor murmured as she knelt to look closer and found Durgeddin ready to chop it in half if it so much as blinked.
Eslor didn't like what she was seeing. Her head snapped up, and she shouted, "BACK UP! NOW! SPORES! KEEP THEM OFF YOU!" Eslor backed awayas fast as she could, and everyone else quickly followed her.
"Rot Troll. It's a normal Troll, but it is infected with spores that rot away the flesh. If the spores get on you, they start to rot your flesh. We either move now or burn them to ash to kill the spores.
"I can pray for someRemove Disease spells. One for each of us. Probably including your three as well." She meant Rick, Kate, and Alexis. "An Undead might be immune, but you are not a true Undead," Eslor told them.
"I have a couple of potions," Corimin offered.
Eslor gave her head a quick shake. "Save them for an emergency. I can handle this. Patches might be immune, but Night will not be."
"Trolls exist?" Rick questioned. "You mean like a Troll under a bridge? That kind of Troll?" Rick was intrigued and worried at the same time.
"How many different Trolls are there?" Kate inquired since these sounded different.
"A lot of them. Blood Trolls, Cave Trolls, Desert Trolls, Dire Trolls, War Trolls. Those are just the ones I know of," Fiona responded. "And a normal Troll. Save for these guys, they all regenerate damage almost as fast as they are injured. But Rot Trolls are more Undead than a Troll."
"These were all around us. So how did those Trolls get here?" Eslor wondered. They were in the middle of a Desert, after all.
Unfortunately, none of them had an answer for that.
"Zombies want to eat your brains." Rick shrugged. "Maybe it's as simple as that. They knew we were out here and wanted to eat our brains. Smelled us maybe."
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Thinruthalaem The Brass Dragon