Disclaimer: Go read an earlier one.
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They stepped from the ill lit cavern into a strange wide corridor with blue light emanating from no distinct source. Ricardt looked quickly around as he stepped through and found that there were little alcoves unevenly spaced down the length of the passageway. The flat nature of the lighting made it difficult to judge distance, but the huge stone hall looked like it continued for a ways. The paladin glanced at the rest of the party and saw that Joss had both of his axes out and ready. Mirandaline tossed something over to Teilla and commenced dragging a scared Cris father down the tunnel, where the longbow she carried could be put to best use. The archer's coat and the young ranger's cloak seemed to change color to match the surrounding rock.
Teilla, whose red hair seemed to glow like an ember in the icy light, tied the elf's pale kerchief over her hair. She gave the paladin a good luck swat on the shoulder and followed the same path Cris and Mirandaline had taken.
Ricardt got his sword out of its scabbard, his shield seated on his arm and flattened himself against the side of the wide corridor facing the portal. Joss took a similar position on the opposite wall and held his axes in guard. A quick glance down the stone hall let the paladin know that Teilla, Cris and Mirandaline had tucked themselves out of immediate line of sight and probably had their own weapons out and ready.
They did not have long to wait before the creature stepped through the portal. Its scales glowed lime green in the strange light as it swung its long neck around, sniffing for them and chattering rodent-like teeth. It practically tripped over Ricardt and Joss where they hid. The ranger and the paladin jumped out of their hiding places to hack at the beast's hamstrings. To their dismay, neither of them succeeded in getting past the thing's scaly hide. Instead, it turned towards Ricardt and a strange voice inserted itself into the paladin's head, How thoughtful for pretties for my collection to come to me!
The creature reared up and swiped at Ricardt with its long toed forepaw, nearly bowling Joss over with its tail in the process. The paladin reacted by ducking and trying to slash the limb as it swung past him. Three violet missiles slammed into the beast's long neck, leaving little charred marks in its green hide, followed closely by a crossbow quarrel that bounced off a heavy scale. It swiped at Ricardt again before looking down the corridor to where Mirandaline, Cris and Teilla stood.
As soon as it turned its blank orange glowing eyes towards them, arrow fletching sprouted from one of those strange orbs. It turned away from Ricardt and Joss to face the young ranger, archer and bard and let loose a gibbering cry.
From afar the sound had been disquieting. In the close quarters of the blue lit corridor, the jabbering howl echoed and rebounded into their heads as well as off the walls, eating at their coherence and threatening sanity. Cris cried out and dropped his crossbow. Joss clutched at his head and faltered in following the creature's turn towards the other half of the party. Teilla gritted her teeth and tried to force the sound back by humming a tune. Ricardt felt the effect wash over him, but not enough to prevent him from trying for the thing's hamstrings again. He hit hard enough to bruise but not to cut. Mirandaline responded by putting another arrow next to her first. The creature shrieked in pain.
Teilla recovered enough to start singing a rousing battle song in earnest, chasing away the disorienting noise of the creature's cries. Joss and Cris shook the cobwebs out of their heads and recovered their weapons. Joss again tried for the beast's hind legs as any woodsman would try to fell a tree. Cris reloaded his crossbow and fired a bolt into the creature's neck. It gave a watery whistle of pain and said angrily into their heads, One, two! One, two! Thou hast not slain me yet!
The beast turned back to face Ricardt. In the process, it swiped a bat-like wing at Cris and Mirandaline. The elf shoved the young man into their covering alcove ahead of her, narrowly avoiding getting struck by the wingbeat. The paladin hunkered behind his shield as best he could and dodged as the creature slapped at him with long taloned forepaws. Joss launched one of his axes for the beast's neck and missed. The creature lashed its whip-like tail at the ranger and caught him across the ribs. The impact knocked the breath from Joss's lungs and slammed him into the corridor wall.
Cris and Mirandaline looked out of the alcove. The elf stepped away from cover to send another two arrows to bury themselves in the creature's neck. Cris's bolt shattered on the beast's body scales. The creature gave another garbling shriek, but this time the resolution instilled by the bard's singing kept the worst of the sound off of them.
Ricardt took a paw swipe across his right side that threatened to send him spinning into the corridor wall, but instead knocked the paladin to the ground and his longsword out of his hand. The creature leered over the paladin, baring its set of sharp rodent's teeth, My jaws go snicker-snack too, manling!
Teilla halted her song to draw breath to throw a spell. Joss got up to charge the creature's flank. A dull boom followed by the scent of ferns resounded through the hallway. The beast reeled as if something large and heavy slammed into its side. Joss switched tactics and started casting a spell instead. Ricardt rolled to his feet and scrambled after his blade. The bard sang a spell and a bright rainbow of colored light sprayed over the beasts head, further disorienting it.
Cris again hit scales with his crossbow and the creature thrashed its wings and tail in irritation. Its gyrations ceased when Joss finished his spell and entangling vines sprang up from the stone floor, binding the beast fast. It shrieked in outrage in their ears and heads as it struggled to free itself, I will have thou for my mantle!
Teilla suddenly had an idea and shouted, "Aim for the neck!"
"What?" Joss asked.
"The inscription!" she called back. "'Must take the head to go triumphant back!' We'll try to pin the thing down!" The bard spun her hands through another spell to daze the creature.
"Off with its head then," Ricardt grunted as he recovered his sword and ran towards the entangled creature. Joss raised his one remaining ax for a downward stroke, but the thing snaked its head around and bit the ranger in the shoulder.
Behold the Jabberwock, thy doom! the beast crowed into their minds as it reared up out of the entangling vines, still holding joss's shoulder firmly in its jaws. It shook the dangling ranger like a dog with a rat before tossing joss at Cris and Mirandaline.
The air around the elven archer seemed to thicken with the smell of damp ferns and Joss's flight slowed. He hit the ground at bruising speed rather than breakneck and skidded to where Mirandaline stood. Cris darted towards the moaning ranger and cried, "Uncle Joss!"
"Pull him back and get something clean over those wounds!" Mirandaline ordered the younger ranger and sent another arrow winging for the beast's head. Ricardt swung at the "jabberwock's" neck and scored a slice along the creature's jawline. It gave a piercing shriek and rained slashes down at the paladin.
The paladin again weathered the battering and slashed at the creature's neck when it came within reach. "Someone kick Joss's ax to me!" he shouted, "And think of a way to get its head down!"
"There's an idea," Joss muttered through his pain and nudged his remaining ax towards the bard.
Teilla kicked it as close to Ricardt as she could and asked Mirandaline, "Can you do whatever you did earlier again?"
"Not nearly as strong as before, but yes," the elf answered, "Think you can distract the jabberwock or whatever it is for a moment or two?"
"Nothing to do but try." The bard started to sing again. Instead of a rousing battle song, she wove a far more complicated melody and threw it over the creature like a net.
The jabberwock turned its remaining flame orange eye to regard the elf-kin and thought at them, Thou shalt be the centerpieces to my collection, little nightingales.
Ricardt took advantage of the momentary distraction to set his sword down, take up the ax on the ground and get into better position on the creature's side. A sharp pop and the verdant aroma of ferns announced Mirandaline's contribution. The kinetic push, aimed at the base of the creature's skull, shoved the jabberwock's head down to within easy reach of the paladin.
Ricardt swung the ax as hard as he could and shouted, "Tyr!" His first stroke bit deep into muscle, sinew and arteries. The creature flailed about weakly and the paladin took a second stroke, this time shearing through bone as well as muscle.
As the jabberwock's body twitched about in its death throes, Ricardt jogged over to where Teilla, Mirandaline and Cris turned their full attention to Joss's wounds. "I'm getting too old for these shenanigans," the ranger groaned.
"He's going to be all right, isn't he?" Cris asked in a small voice as Ricardt came up.
Teilla took the young man by the shoulders and moved him back to give the paladin some room and assured him, "He'll be fine. Just wait a moment."
Ricardt summoned up his faith and poured it into healing. Joss's wounds closed and the ranger relaxed, then grimaced at the residual stiffness and the sticky bloodstains. Cris blew a huge sigh of relief. "Thank Mielikki that's over with," Joss grunted as he sat up. "Next time I'll leave flying to the birds."
Teilla looked around at the group. Ricardt busily chanted another healing prayer into his ribs. Joss and Cris produced a sack and started getting the jabberwock's head into it. Mirandaline poked farther up the corridor. "Is anyone else curious about the collection that thing kept mentioning?" the bard asked the room in general.
"What did you think I was looking for?" the archer called back. "Incidentally, there's a side passage up here. Care to check it out with me?"
"We'll be along in a minute," the paladin shooed Teilla towards the waiting elf. Louder he added, "Give a yell if something comes up!"
Teilla walked down the strange corridor to where Mirandaline stood. The blue lit hallway seemed to stretch on forever as she neared the elf. "Neat trick isn't it?" the archer grinned. "You can't get past this point, but the tunnel seems to go on." Mirandaline pointed to the bard's left, "If you stand here and look back, the next passageway is pretty obvious."
Teilla came up next to the elf and looked back towards Ricardt, Joss and Cris. On the right hand wall, A patch of soft white light illuminated a grey stone alcove. Upon further examination, the niche clearly became another hallway. "Think we should call the boys over for this?" the bard asked.
"Why not?" Mirandaline shrugged, then gave a loud sharp whistle. When the paladin and two rangers looked up in her direction, the elf waved them all over. Cris shouldered the bag with the jabberwock's head in it before starting forward with Ricardt and Joss.
When the men caught up, they all stepped into the new side tunnel. It opened up into a large hallway of a size with the blue lit corridor. The side hall seemed comprised of grey stone with flecks of crystal in it and the soft light seemed to be emanating from where the ceiling and walls joined to better illuminate the stone. "Why would anything want to look at rock walls rather than where their feet are going?" Joss wondered out loud as they walked down the hallway.
"Maybe the jabberwock was mining something," Cris suggested. "Or maybe it was crazy."
Ricardt looked at the grey stone wall where one of the pools of light seemed to center and gently tapped at the rock. The section of rock remained solid but became as transparent as glass and lit from within. The paladin looked through the crystal and said, "Teilla?"
"What?" the bard looked back to see him staring at the wall.
"Take a look," He gestured at the crystalline section of wall. Teilla, Joss, Cris and Mirandaline crowded around the paladin and looked into the quartz clear stone.
Utterly still and trapped like a fly in amber, stood a tall Purple Dragon knight, his sword raised for a downward slash and a shield on his arm. Cris tapped at the next section with a small spotlight and it too lit up and became transparent, displaying a monk with the red arm wraps of an adherent to Illmater frozen in a guard stance.
"I think we found the jabberwock's collection," Teilla noted.
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Added Disclaimer: The jabberwock is not mine, he is the invention of Lewis Carroll. The description written here is taken from the illustration by John Tenniel and the skit that the Muppet Show did.
Author's note: I apologize to those of you who have been waiting, but it takes me forever to script out battle scenes. I do hope it was amusing though. As always, please leave a review.