A/N: I'm still here, I promise! I'm a slow writer at the best of times, though; toss in two jobs and a toddler and things come quickly to a halt until I have time to deal with them and give them the attention they deserve. As such, this has been getting slowly but steadily written for several months. Thank you all so much for your kind words and comments and, especially, to Kyn for help in plotting out some future things with this story! As always, comments, questions, etc. are encouraged and I apologize in advance if this still seems rough. It's late here, and I sometimes miss things even on the third or fourth read-through and eventually post anyway, hoping that I'm being overly critical and that enterprising (and eagle-eyed) readers will catch the stuff I didn't.
Also ... maybe eventually we'll get out of Irenicus' dungeon? I'm definitely hoping to, by the end of the next installment, though I've definitely planned for a few very exciting events to happen and for a few people to finally be introduced. To speed things along, I'll be leaving out some of the less important details until we get to Amn and skipping ahead here and there. You guys get it. :)
With no small amount of effort, the foursome had found the trapped shelves and relieved the library of its useful contents. Oddly, the longer they stayed there, the less of a library it seemed… it was really more of a storage attic, Imoen decided. There was no real organization to it. Only certain shelves had been warded, and the books they came across that were valuable – mostly spare spellbooks and a few first edition history tomes - were simply glamered to look like the other dusty volumes around them. The thief shook her head, cataloguing it as yet another glimpse into the Mad Mage's fractured psyche and hubris.
Eli, less psychology-minded than his red-haired companion, was obviously a child of Candlekeep's Libraries. The half elf had grabbed up as many of the spellbooks and rogue scrolls that he and Khalid could carry and lugged them to their resting spot for the night, first dividing them equally between the three casters, and then making a separate pile of the repeats and things he couldn't use. He seemed especially thrilled, after cracking open one of the books, about the state of the spellbook itself – fine tracings of steel wove around the spine of the book and through the front and back cover, and the maroon leather binding was curiously rough and scaled.
"What is that, snakeskin?" Imoen asked curiously, hovering over him as he read.
"Nooo…" He ran a long finger across the tome's spine appreciatively. "Dragon. This is a beautiful book, Ims. I guess he never expected anyone but himself to get into the library, otherwise you'd think he'd've put more effort into trapping everything."
"I cannot make heads nor tails of this. Irenicus' spells are gibberish," Dynaheir informed him, tossing down her own book. The Wychlaran was clearly frustrated with the pile of literature she'd been provided. The gesture made Eli flinch, and take a deep breath to calm himself.
"All right… well… the root runes are in Elvish, so if you're unfamiliar or less comfortable with it, that's going to be an issue," he began slowly, setting his book down, then standing up to assist her with deciphering the spell she'd been on. Gently, as if it were a baby or an injured animal, the half-elf picked up the discarded spellbook and brought it back over, then started pointing out the delicate interweaving of runes Irenicus had scribed onto the page. Imoen, glancing over to see whether Eli was looking, quickly plucked one of the scales from the cover of the dragonscale book and tucked it away. After all, one never knew when dragon scales could come in handy, and he probably wouldn't notice.
She lacked the head to sit down and study. Instead, the thief took mental stock of their situation: they were nearly operational as a group again, between the rations they'd found and their new reading material; as such, the group's moral and spirit of joviality was beginning to return, but something was missing. A rumble from her stomach reminded her exactly what that was. If Eli was a child of the library, then Imoen was clearly a child of the tavern and their diet of hardtack, jerky, and stale water was getting old.
They were wandering through the library's meandering passageways the next morning, armed with a few spells and taking their time in case there was anything they'd missed when a sudden, familiar smell came over them. "Coffee?" Imoen asked, pale eyes widening as she sniffed the air. It smelled real… "Tell me I'm dreaming. There can't possibly be a pot of coffee this far into a dungeon."
"Coffee is the LAST thing you need right now," Eli remarked, rolling his eyes at her over the dragonscale book.
"Or anytime," Khalid added drily.
Her excitement was mounting as the smell surrounded them. "No, seriously – someone is brewing coffee down here!" Her enthusiasm suddenly waned, though, as her mind pondered the situation more. "Bet it's goblins or… or brew mephits or something else stupid, though."
"'Brew mephits'," the Calishite mouthed to himself, shaking his head. He tore off another piece of hard jerky and chewed thoughtfully while the wizards read. "You know," he began, swallowing the bland rations, "We c-could check it out. Who or whatever is m-making the smell is in the direction we're going anyway."
Imoen nodded vigorously. "Yes. Please?" She looked to Eli and Dynaheir, the latter of whom had also paused in her studying and was eyeing the youngest wizard with interest.
Slowly – painfully slowly to Imoen, who tended to operate an order of magnitude faster than her friend – Elioth placed a cloth strap into the borrowed spellbook, shut it, blinked, and looked up. "All right. But I'm not one hundred percent on my spells yet, and I doubt whatever is you're going to find will happily let you have a cup without a fight."
"So long as I get coffee – real coffee, not that conjured junk you tried to make me on the road – I don't care where it comes from," the redhead declared cavalierly, slinging her gear over her shoulder. She looked to Khalid, whose lips were twitching at the exchange. "This one knows what I mean," she added, jerking a thumb at the bald warrior. "He grew up on good Calishite stuff."
"W-which is why it came in s-small cups!" Khalid didn't disagree about what was probably the second best known export of Calimshan; meanwhile, while he and Imoen stood, Dynaheir and Eli packed away the books and other assorted findings from their mobile study session.
They hadn't gone more than two hundred yards from the edge of the library when the smell turned from the sharp aroma of brewing coffee to the sickly-sweet odor of decay. Eli lagged back, gathering part of his ragged tunic to hold over his nose while Khalid – as the fighter had become accustomed to doing since the foursome escaped – investigated the tangled mass of bodies.
Four goblins, beaten to death with blunt objects and left to rot. That made twice now. The half-elf frowned down at the dead goblins, then looked up to inform them of what he'd seen only to catch the tail end of a spell and Imoen's shadow as she crept against the walls and down the hall a short ways. Khalid's scavenged armor was clunky and loud; he stayed where he was, exchanging worried glances with Dynaheir and Eli.
"Did she –?" Eli mouthed. Khalid nodded, and the younger half-elf frowned deeply. They all stood in an electric silence, waiting for some cue to act.
Shouting – Imoen's and someone elses' – moved the three lagging party members into action. Khalid sprinted ahead, drawing out his sword on the way and charging while a beam of light whizzed past them and made solid contact with a short, squat creature. It – a dwarf – released the mage-thief and clutched at his eyes, roaring to his compatriots: "Ho, laddies, the lassie brought some friends! Let's show 'em proper 'ospitality, aye?"
Three other dwarves turned around, locking eyes momentarily with the party, and moved to attack.
"How many are there?" Eli's high voice floated above the combat from far away.
"Four!" cried Imoen, stolen daggers slashing into the ribs of her nearest assailant. The dwarf gave a strangled cry as he slumped to the ground clutching his side, down but not completely out; Imoen kicked him hard in the back of the head, not particularly caring what the result was. She amended her previous statement: "Three! Be careful, they've got casters!"
"On it," Eli called back, forming the seeds of a new spell.
Nearby, Khalid circled the blinded dwarf cautiously – with the one on Imoen now out of combat, the three mages seemed like they had the rest of the situation under control. He took advantage of his opponent's handicap to study the man. The firelight made it hard to tell, but it looked like the other man was greyer than a surface dwarf, and his white beard was cropped closer than was usually considered acceptable among the stout-kin. "We've n-no quarrel with y-you, duergar," he ventured, making the assumption. "L-let us through and we won't trouble you further…"
The blinded man laughed, his gravelly voice resonating against the stone walls. "Ye stutterin' ponce," he shot back. "L'il Red tried a'take our food, ye've blinded me, an' downed one a' me men? It's too LATE fer ye ta try n'parley!"
"I m-mean it," Khalid warned, giving him one last chance to reconsider. He raised the sword, getting into fighting stance. The gesture of mercy, however, was wasted on the blinded duergar.
"Ilyich don't make deals with fool prisoners," he said gruffly. He rubbed at his eyes one last time before shaking his head, and charging Khalid. Khalid should have struck then, in retrospect – Ilyich hadn't gathered his strength before the charge and dwarves were nearly always stronger than he, but something held the Calishite back, made him wait until Ilyich was almost on top of him. His hesitation earned him a nicked calf, and an even surlier opponent.
"Dun need to see ya t'get ya," the dwarf called tauntingly.
Khalid came forward suddenly in an attempt to trip Ilyich – it was a tactical move, borne out of deeply-instilled military training and the unfairness of trying to kill a blind man, even if he WAS out for his blood. Ilyich was faster than he'd anticipated, though, and managed to sidestep him, swinging his axe low and whacking his other leg with the blunt back. It hurt, but not enough to bring the half-elf down to the ground. Khalid gritted his teeth and resumed his stance, avoiding the dwarf's next attack.
"Come on now!" Ilyich complained.
To the sides, the wizards were using their magical strengths to tag-team their final two opponents. Dynaheir's firepower was normally the strongest of the three wizards, though today, it was only temporary – when her scrolls ran out, so did the spells. Eli had always taken a support role in combat, preferring to supplement a battle with well-timed Rays of Enfeeblement or – as he'd done with Ilyich – Blindnesses rather than enter a fray and rain down fire and lightning, butcurrently, he was dispatching the dwarven crossbowman with a volley of Magic Missiles. His friend crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes when Dynaheir uttered the final word froma scroll of Scorching Ray.
A quick glimpse of red hair caught Khalid's eye – Imoen was sneaking behind Ilyich, trying to keep her distance from his wildly-swinging axe. She brought a finger up to her lips and to Khalid's surprise, she began to seed a spell of her own with no sound, concentrating instead on a highly complex somatic component. Ilyich took that moment to raise his weapon and chop in Khalid's way but caught an Aganazzar's Scorcher in his back – it wasn't enough to kill him, but it did throw him off his game and left him badly singed. He whirled around angrily, but Imoen had long-since tumbled out of his way.
"Brought one a'yer mages, did ye?"
"Quit talking, sheesh," Imoen complained. Ilyich's blind eyes widened and he lunged for her, which left a huge swath of his torso unprotected. It also gave a perfect opportunity for the Calishite to strike. Khalid's sword struck against his armor, denting it but doing no damage to the flesh inside, but the team effort allowed Ilyich to be brought down to the ground, disarmed, and knocked out with the flat of the half-elf's blade. It was quick work to dispatch of the last remaining member of Ilyich's gang, rifle through the room for anything useful, and regroup.
"Potions!" Imoen called out, getting a few vials out of the beltpouches of the duergar caster. "A scroll too. Dyn, you might want to try this one." The redhead squinted at the crumpled up piece of parchment, then tossed it to Eli to handle. "It's dwarven-based. You know some dwarven, right?"
"Acorns," Dynaheir responded, distractedly. Imoen raised an eyebrow, as did Khalid, who was busily stripping the bodies of their assorted weapons and armor.
"Come again…?" the thief asked slowly.
"The leader has… acorns?" To the group, the Rashemi held out her hand, in which three of the oak seeds lay. "From whence does a duergar get acorns?"
The Kitchens, as Imoen had dubbed them, quickly became the foursome's new base of operations, which they fortified by dragging crates and tables over to the exits to roughly seal off. The mage/thief had taken it upon herself to serve up the dwarves' coffee and distribute steaming bowls of hot stew and bread to the group at large while the other three worked out their plans for escape.
"…I think we should search the hallway and see what else is down here," Eli was saying through greedy mouthfuls of fresh brown bread. His stew lay untouched; apparently, even near starvation wasn't enough impetus to shelve vegetarianism and embrace the concept of Dwarven mystery meat. Khalid, on the other hand, had no such compunctions. He was at the end of his second bowl and eyeing the wizard's castoffs hungrily.
"Have we parchment and coal to draw a map upon, perhaps?" Dynaheir asked. The hot food and her spells had revived her and she was sitting cross-leggedly by Eli, protecting the acorns she'd found while assisting with the escape. She, too, was eyeing the bowl of his stew. Khalid caught her eye and passed it over, inwardly sighing; her scars weren't visible like they were on him, but she was in worse shape and the least he could provide was stew.
"Yes!" Eli rifled through the sack of their belongings and retrieved some of the library's stolen goods. Charcoal stick in hand, he scratched out a large rectangle; after a moment's thought, the half-elf added in small details such as the edges of the hallway and the various crates and tables scattered within. When he'd finished, he added one last detail: a large X near one of the tables. "It should go without saying that we're at the X."
"Aye…" A hint of a grin pulled at Dynaheir's full lips. "There is an exit behind us into the unknown, and the path we tread to arrive here." Elioth drew them in obligingly. "Shall we explore the chamber ahead, then?" Imoen joined them quietly, padding up quietly and perching herself at the edge of one of the tables while she sipped at her hard-earned brew.
A groan from the corner shifted their attention. "I would'nae," informed Ilyich, slowly coming back to consciousness. The entire group looked at him sharply. "Wot? Ain't a point in lyin' tae ye now, me armor and life's in yer hands. Irenicus' 'pet' lives down there."
"Pet," Eli repeated, chewing thoughtfully on a crust of bread. "What kind of 'pets' does a man like that keep, anyhow?"
"Duergar," Imoen quipped.
The duergar's frown was nasty and directed at the thief. "Fun ones, lad. Real fun, fer certain definitions." The uncomfortable silence that followed seemed to mollify him; his expression turned neutral, and then amused. "Ever hear of a Cambion, l'il elf?"
Dynaheir muttered something in Rashemi, her dark eyes narrowing. Startled, the younger half-elf turned to her, a quizzical expression on his face. "'Tis a most foul being," she explained, "The offspring of demons and mortals. They are rare, but it would only make sense to find one of them here; no doubt 'tis one of Irenicus' other experiments." She lowered the bowl of stew down and set it in front of her. From the looks of it, she'd lost her appetite.
"S-so… are we avoiding the hall, then?" Khalid asked, setting his own bowl down. He'd scraped it clean. "We could s-simply take a look. Pardon me if I d-don't entirely trust the dwarf in the c-corner."
"Best to let sleeping lions lay," the Wychlaran disagreed.
"We could scry it, y'know. That way we could sidestep the whole issue." Imoen thought a moment, adding, "Hell, we could scout out a lot of things that way, now that we kinda have our spells back. Or we could just send short-stuff in there." She was needling Ilyich uselessly now.
"That's… that's a really good idea, actually," Eli agreed, amending the statement to, "The scrying, I mean. Ims, leave him alone."
"*He* tried to kill me," she protested.
"And now *he's* tied up, and will be following us around," her companion argued back. "I think I speak for the rest of us when I say that it needs to stop." The thief pouted, narrowing her pale eyes, then sulked for a few moments into her beverage. Eli watched her for a moment, continuing, when he was certain Imoen wouldn't interrupt again, "As I was saying… once we prepare the right spells, THAT should take care of a lot of useless scouting to and fro."
"It would help us to also find out where they're keeping Jaheira and the others," Imoen muttered.
"Unless the building is warded against scrying," Dynaheir pointed out. She caught Khalid's hungry gaze and passed him the now twice-discarded stew, which he accepted gratefully and started in on. "'Tis worth a try."
The half-elf wizard nodded, then went for his pack again to start rifling through books. "Okay. Then we rest up, and see what we can prepare before heading out. Dyn, Ims – let's take inventory and scribe some more things for Dynaheir."
They formed a marching order, once they'd plonked a clairvoyance and a clairaudience down as far into the hallway as they could and spied on the Cambion ahead. The creature in his protective bubble made it very easy to choose a path – that is, AWAY from the creature – but they had not yet gone far before their hitchhiking djinn paid them another visit. In his usual bluster of misty smoke, Aataqah – who for once sounded something other than blithe or amused – cried out to them, "You must turn back!" He gesticulated towards the abandoned hallway they were about to leave behind.
"Back where?" Imoen snapped. "Into our cages?" Between her chastisement by Eli, forced moratorium at trading barbs with Ilyich, and the burden of having done most of the work with spying down the hallway, Imoen's mood was less than buoyant.
The djinn pointed once more in the other direction to everyone's chagrin. "My friend is in that hallway!" His dark face was intense. Beads of sweat were gathering at his brow, and his face had taken on the grimace of a man in pain.
The foursome froze awkwardly, trading glances with one another. On the one hand, they HAD promised Aataqah his companion's freedom for help (indirect as it had been) with their escape. On the other hand, none of the four - and likely, not Ilyich either - wanted to face off against a half-demon to secure it. Ilyich broke the silence for them, though not in the most constructive manner.
"Ye brought the genie with ye?" he exclaimed. Apparently the two had crossed paths before. "Laduguer save us from sympathetic fools…"
Aataqah – still pointing – spared the dwarf a mere glance before returning his attentions to Khalid. "I really must insist you keep up your end of the bargain, with all the help I've given you," he gritted out. Ilyich scowled at the snub; Imoen gave him a wicked smile.
"A-Aataqah," Khalid began as gently as he could, in part to keep the party from losing focus again. "We s-scried the end of the h-hall. There's a Cambion there, b-but no trace of your friend. It's not s-safe for us to s-stay…" The djinn raised an eyebrow at him questioning, so he tried again. "You… you're pointing at the hallway that l-leads to the—"
"He is not with the beast, I assure you. The pull to my kind is away from its pen," the genie reassured him, floating partway down the hall they'd just abandoned. He frowned, concentrating at the blank stones in front of him. "I can sense him, but cannot see him. Damn… there must be a secret door. None of you can sense it?"
Eli and Khalid shook their heads. Imoen bit her lip. "I could've, had I prepared the right spells for it," she shrugged, joining the djinn. There didn't seem to be an obvious trigger mechanism for a door, nor was an outline indicating one recognizeable. There was an oddly-shaped indentation in the stone, however, irregular enough in shape that the thief didn't recognize it for what it was outright. If she hadn't just heard that there was something on the other side, she'd've dismissed it as nothing more than a missing chunk of rock. "Eli…" she trailed off. "Still have that chalk?"
He tossed it, and she rubbed it around the edges of the stone to get a better idea of the trigger's outline – maybe something seated? The chalk hadn't helped much at all to identify it.
"Aataqah." Imoen turned towards the nervous-looking djinn, hoping to ally some of his worry. "We'll have to come back for your friend once we've found… whatever this is," she said, trying to look apologetic. "There's just no way to open the door now."
"You promised-"
"I still do. We still do." From the expression of her party members, she wasn't certain if they agreed, but all four adventurers were men and women of their word. "Please trust us. In fact, follow us. That way you can keep an eye out for… whatever this is… too."
The genie obviously wasn't keen on the idea, but he bowed his dark head by way of agreement and didn't immediately dissipate as he had done in the past. Perhaps, the mage-thief thought idly, the addition of the djinn would make this all go faster… things certainly couldn't go any more slowly.