From the journal of Kenari Sanura
After a few hours of travel the brambles begin to lessen and finally open up into another clearing with a structure in the distance. As we get closer it has the look of an old wooden theatre.
"A theatre? Here? There's just something odd about that," I mutter.
"Like anything is normal around here," Melchior replies as he walks past.
"I'm just saying," I continue as I follow the others. "You've got all of these characters created by this bard to act out her story, and what does she make them do? Act out another story within the story. It just seems kind of cruel to me, is all… like making a cow eat a steak or something."
Ef Utan snorts and shakes his head. "Let's stay focused, people… there's not telling what's going on in there after the last house we checked out. "
We eventually stop outside the front of the theatre and scope out the three main doors, but can't find any back doors to speak of. There are some windows up above, however. I gesture towards one with a thumb over my shoulder. "Shall I?"
"By all means, let us know what you see!"
I grin and strap on my gauntlets for a little extra help as I use the eaves and some of the old boards sticking out as footholds. Once I've got myself proped on the ledge above I take one of the few clean sections left of my sash and wipe away the dust and dirt to see what I can see. My eyes widen and my ears twitch in surprise before I jump down to the ground to inform the others.
"Well, other than the typical rundown theatre with a stage and dusty seats, there's a whole pile of Storykin bodies on one corner of the stage while this dark haired guy in a red jacket and a puppet on strings talk to each other."
"He's a ventriloquist?" Ef Utan asks in curiosity. I look at him blankly as he sighs. "Is he using his hands to make the puppet talk?"
"No, that's the freaky thing, " I continue. "The he's holding the strings of the puppet, but it is definitely talking back to him in a different voice." I shudder and rub my arms. Demon dolls… what a nasty thought!
"The cook mentioned a Sanguine Playhouse run by a Ballomar," Ef Utan remembers. "I'm guessing the guy in the red jacket is probably him, so let's go have a talk!"
I sheath my gauntlets and brush the dust off my hands. Ef suddenly stops as if he remembered something and turns to me with a scroll in his hand. "Before I forget… I figure this might come in handy for you if you ever need a magical enhancement for your weapons."
"Much appreciated! I'm sure I will put it to good use," I chuckle as I roll it up and put it in one of the side pockets of my pack.
Once we're ready to go it only takes a quick check of the doors to discover that they not only aren't trapped… but they aren't locked, either. "He must be expecting an audience," I joke.
"Theatre people never could take a critic," Vedis replies with a smirk. "I can only imagine how he'll react to us."
Ef Utan opens the main doors and strides into the lobby with the rest of us following behind. The faded remnants of what must have used to have been beautiful murals decorate the ceilings. Upon closer look and the size of that satyr's…. well… this must have been a bawdy playhouse once, that's all I'm saying. I'm trying my best not to look at what's left of a rather questionable well-endowed centaur when a movement catches my eye upon one of the cornices. Eeew… is that a bug? Did they really bother to make bugs of this story?
Suddenly the bug leaps down from the cornice onto an old wooden table and speaks. "My name is Grig! Nice to meet you! Pardon me… but have you seen my fiddle?"
"No, can't say that we have, little one," Lenata answers with a smile.
Wait a minute… do I hear music? What's that tapping noise? I quickly turn around to look for the offending sounds and discover that Melchior's foot is tapping. Strangely enough, it looks like he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
The sound of music grows stronger when suddenly a very small violin appears bobbing to and fro in the air from the next room. There's that tapping again… but it's getting louder! I look back at Melchior and see that he's not just tapping his feet… he's starting to dance an awkward jig. In fact… it looks like the others are starting to do it too.
"What in the 9 Hells are you doing to my friends?" I snarl at Grig as my head begins to pound.
"Not an appreciator of fine music, I see," the cricket frowns as it backs away.
With a hiss I make a grab for the blasted thing and just manage to snag it with a claw under one of the strings. Quickly I turn to the cricket in order to get him to make it stop… only to find that it has made its way to the swaying Lenata and is working on loosening the clasp of the Heart token around her neck.
Thinking fast, I grasp the struggling violin tightly in my hand and swing my pack onto the ground so that I can stuff it inside one of the inter-dimensional pockets. Play all you like in there… no one can hear you anymore. Crud… I just hope I didn't put anything important in that pocket.
With the fiddle out of hearing, the dancing curse soon fades and Lenata grasps at her neck. "We've got to get that back! Come on, Vedis!" The cleric and the Maenad then take off up the stairs to the balcony after the offending cricket.
I'm about to take off after them when a voice stops me in my tracks.
"Ah… our lead actors have finally arrived!"
A shiver of dread rolls down my spine at the words, and I quickly pull three cards from my sash: The Theatre, The Cricket, and The Twins. Swirls of energy fall over me, Ef Utan and the puppet on the stage. I can only hope a similar effect is helping Vedis and Lenata with getting their token back from Grig.
Ef Utan's response to the puppeteer's declaration is much less subtle in its reply as we struts purposely down the aisles and promptly conjures a TK fist that slams the puppeteer into the pile of storykin corpses. I shake off my dread and quickly follow suit with a well-aimed explosive round into the side of the puppet. Ef Utan can handle the other guy… I hate magical dolls! Seriously… they're too dang creepy! Chunks of wood splinter off of it as its small wooden arms start waving about in what I swear is something I've seen Ef Utan do before.
Waitaminute… is it trying to cast a spell?
Before I can try and stop it, however, a squeal comes from above us as that flying monkey of Vedis' glides down and grabs the offending cricket out of the air between its teeth. Apparently Vedis had the same plan (or I'm finally rubbing off on her) as she takes a running leap off the balcony and slams into the puppet master, the stage and whatever might have been underneath it as arms, legs and wood planks go flying. Arms and legs flail about as she tries to extricate her leg from the new hole in the stage she made without letting the puppet or its master loose.
No sense in wasting a good opportunity… "CAT PILE!" I yell as I thrust my hands into my gauntlets and bound down the aisles in a leap that lands me directly on top of Vedis.
"Pardon me, just passing through," I chuckle as I reach over her right shoulder and cut off the puppet's arm. "Let's see you cast now, you little bastard!"
I feel the thump of a small body as it lands on my back and squeals in delight at its masters playtime. "Let me go you storykin reject!" wails an angry little voice. Good lizard monkey thing… extra Tanglefoot bags for you if we ever get back to the ship!
"Quick, Balomar… take the token!" Grig yells just before Ef Utan's boot crunches down on the puppets head and he grabs the token out of the air.
"I don't think so."
"Okay, that's it… time to end this!" Vedis exclaims in frustration before a pulse of energy radiates out from her and everyone but us falls asleep.
Suddenly there is a blast of thunder and everything goes dark in the theatre. Little pinpricks of light like stars shine down from above as it begins to rain upon the stones that we're now standing on.
"Vedis…" I whisper nervously as I look around at our new surroundings. "What did you do?"
"Don't ask me how it happened, but I think this is a dream," Vedis whispers as the starlight illuminates a woman in silks chained to an altar on a raised stone dais nearby.
Nine cloaked figures appear from the darkness and encircle the dais as each raises their daggers high in some sick ritual. Ef Utan draws his sword and runs to the dais to try and block the daggers while Lenata mutters a whispered prayer to her god for a spell that might save the woman.
"No!" she calls out in frustration. "My spells aren't working!"
I reach out with my mind and try to imagine myself crouched on the dais and the woman in silks on the ground beside Lenata… but for the life of me something about her just keeps slipping from my grasp and prevents my new abilities from working.
The cloaked figures strike in unison, the daggers plunging into the helpless woman again and again. Lenata cringes and looks away as the woman screams, but I can't help but notice that the arm of the one standing in front of Ef Utan passed right through him.
Eventually the screams end and one of the figures cuts open the corpse as the others greedily start reaching into her body and pulling out various amulets and tokens. So this is how they did it… no wonder she was so angry!
"That poor woman…" Lenata whispers.
"Hmmn… let me try something," says Vedis as she reaches out her hand and freezes the scene. Her brow furrows for a moment and then it's like everything is happening in reverse as the figures replace the tokens and close her wounds. When it rewinds back to where they've drawn their daggers, the scene freezes.
"I wonder why we're seeing this… and how?" Vedis mutters. "Could this be the dream of the conspirators? Or maybe what is left of the spirit of Sonneray is trying to show this to us?"
"Well since we're here, let's see what we can see," I say as I cautiously squeeze between the conspirators and look at the altar. "I wonder if there's any writing here that might pertain to the ritual?" As I kneel down to check the sides of the altar I notice some inscriptions along the base in a few different dialects. All of them seem to be references to the same story of betrayal and sacrifice. I stand up to tell the others when a particularly interesting inscription catches my eye. Around the indentation for the head of the sacrifice there seems to be a glyph that looks curiously like the Spelljammer.
"Guys, I think this is where those 10th Pit guys are going to conduct that ritual with the Dream Stone!"
"I just hope that they haven't already done it," mutters Ef Utan as he walks around the circle to peer under the hoods. "Why don't you let this dream play for a bit, Vedis… I want to get a good idea of who is who, and who took what token."
Vedis complies and after a few minutes we're able to come up with a list of the betrayers we haven't encountered yet:
Tic-Toc Man takes her eyes
Balomar (the puppet!) takes her skin
The Night Peddler takes her ears
The Weaver takes her hands
Some unidentified augmented human takes her brain
When we're done, it seems the dream has decided that it's gone on long enough and the figures turn into wispy puffs of smoke before everything goes dark.
The light returns and I'm blinking for a few minutes to adjust before I realize that we're back on the stage in the theatre again, Balomar and his puppet master asleep under Vedis' power.
"No need for them to wake up again," says Ef Utan as he draws his dagger and bends down to slice the throat of the sleeping puppeteer. I can hear the cleric's gasp of shock at such an act, but Melchior nods in approval at justice being done and I just shrug. Better him than me, I say.
"So where do you think the token for the skin is?" I wonder aloud as I grab the dummy and pop its head off before shaking it upside-down to see if anything falls out. Alas, all that comes out is a nasty cloud of sawdust that gives Ef Utan a coughing fit before it fades away.
"The only interesting thing here seems to be this rather hefty diamond I found on the puppeteer, and no you can't see it, Kenari." Ef Utan replies as he stands up and pockets the diamond.
"Guys, I think there's something you should know," Vedis mutters.
"Again?" Ef Utan replies. "Feel free to tell us these things when they happen, you know."
Vedis ignores him and continues. "I had another vision when I looked at that altar in the dream… I saw Melchot there for just a moment before it became Sonneray again."
"Oh no… do you think they already conducted the ritual?" says Lenata.
"Whether they did or not, our goals haven't changed here, people," says Ef Utan firmly. "We still need to find the Dream Stone and the Witchlight Marauder key before we can get out of here."
The group nods and we finish with the corpses of yet another conspirator before leaving the theatre and heading back to the brambles. We manage to make our way for another hour or two before our momentary silence is disturbed by a loud noise ringing out from a northeastern direction.
"That was a gunshot!" exclaims Melchior in surprise. "Do you think someone else is here in the Harrowing too?"
"Let me check it out first, and I'll come back to report," I offer as I slip on my gauntlets and disappear into the bushes. I do my best to follow the direction I swear I heard the shot come from when I finally come to a clearing. As I look around I can't see anyone with a gun who might have made the shot… but lying in a pool of blood and fur with a bullet between his eyes is the unfortunate soul who was on the receiving end.
That fool rabbit.
"Oh geesh," Vedis moans as the others come into the clearing. "The poor guy didn't deserve to die that way. He was just a silly rabbit!"
"He was a murderer like the others," Melchior replies grimly. "Justice has been done."
"We won't know what was done here until we ask him," says Lenata with a look of disapproval at the gunslinger. "With the help of Celestian, we should be able to ask him what happened."
The silver haired cleric kneels over the furry corpse and mutters a prayer as her hands flutter back and forth above his body. Suddenly Brambelson's eyes open and I have to stop myself from taking a step backwards. What can I say… I don't like the undead!
"Ask me your questions before I finally find my peace, cleric." the voice drones in a raspy monotone.
"Why were you killed?" Lenata asks gently.
"No idea."
"How do we get to the next token?" asks Ef Utan.
"With luck."
"Who killed you?" Lenata asks again.
Brambelson seems to hesitate for a moment… as if he doesn't know the word for what he wants to say. "… ugly pig men."
Oh shit.
I back up from the now quiet corpse with my hands to my holsters as I look around the clearing nervously. "Orcs? Here? They must be looking for the Witchlight Marauder key!"
"From the looks of the body, it doesn't seem like they're that far behind, either," mutters Melchior as he kneels down beside the furry body to examine it.
"All the more reason for us to get the hell out of here and to the next token so we can leave this accursed place," growls Ef Utan as he slams his sword into his scabbard and storms off into the brambles.
Eventually the rest of us catch up with the disgruntled warrior and after 8 hours of hiking we decide to take a chance and make camp. Moods are tense and uneasy as we forego the usual fire and set up watches throughout the night.
Sleep comes fitfully and in spurts as I toss and turn on the hard ground, but I can't shake this feeling of dread now that we know the orcs have invaded this storyland. As much as we have been cutting our own path of destruction, we at least have the desire to make things right if we can. The orcs… who am I kidding, the Scro… let's just say I'll be surprised if we don't wake up to find the whole brambles ablaze.
Maybe that's why my dreams were so strange that night.
I'm walking on an endless field of multi-colored gas that reminds me of the phlogiston so much that I find myself holding my breath in case I've been teleported again. Suddenly a deep guttural voice echoes around me and whispers a litany of violence that I haven't heard since we fought the ghost of a Scro on that strange asteroid that led us to the Imaskari.
I wake up with a jolt gasping for air and look around urgently to see that the others are also waking up and looking worse for wear. I crawl over to Lenata and whisper as the others start packing up camp in silence.
"Did you all have a dream too?"
Lenata nods grimly. "We need to get out of here."
"At the very least a drink… I could definitely use a drink," I mutter as I gather my things and prepare to move through the brambles once again as thunder rattles in the distance.
A few hours later after trudging through the thorns and brambles we come upon a rather large looking building with warm lights and drunken sounds coming from inside.
"Oh my gods… is that what I think it is?" I ask in wonder as I look at a door that could be four times my size.
"Well, you did say you wanted a drink," Lenata jokes. "You just didn't specify what size ."
"It looks like the door is cracked… if we work together we should be able to get it open," Ef Utan offers. The rest of us soon gather with Ef Utan at the door and put what strength we have into it… because apparently I'm not the only one who could use a drink lately.
"Ho now… hold up there, little people… we don't just serve anybody in here!" a booming voice announces as we finally push the door open.
I look up to see a rather intimidating Cyclops behind the bar…. well… he would be if it weren't for the receding hairline, handlebar mustache and apron, anyway. Thinking fast, I reach into my sash and play "The Publican" card and cross my fingers that the sparkling energy I see around him means something helpful just happened.
"Are you sure you don't need the business? Things look kind of slow in here," I say as I look around and take note of the row of black-skinned dwarves with fiery hair sitting at the bar. What are they again… Aesir? I think that's it.
"Besides, not only am I the best waitress in multiple star systems, but I'm a pygmy giant!" Vedis pipes up proudly.
"Are you now?" the Cyclops asks with a grin. "Very well then… she can come in for 500 gold, and the rest of you can come in for one round because you're friends with her." He rummages through a drawer and throws a napkin at her that almost covers her in its size. "Best I can do till we find an apron your size," he mumbles apologetically. "Now let's see you live up to this claim of yours!"
Vedis folds and ties the napkin around her waist as she rolls her eyes and makes her way behind the bar, while I climb up onto a stool to order a drink. Just in case, I pull out the "Brass Dwarf" card and play it as well, hoping that the sparkling energy around them will make them more susceptible to answering a few questions that don't have to do with rocks.
With a sharp bang a rather large mug full of ale is set in front of me and I grin, as this one round is probably going to last a while. I wonder if there's a hangover card in my sash somewhere?
Ef Utan eventually makes his way to a stool and starts sharing stories of battle regarding his prized possession, that Dwarven Battle Mug. Apparently he didn't embellish enough for their tastes, though, as they proceed to school him in how to brag properly. He deftly changes the topic to Orcs, however, and the fate of poor Brambelson.
"Stupid rabbit," mutters one of the dwarves as the rest grow quiet.
"Yeah, it's a shame that he's not going to come back anymore either," I mutter as I take a sip of my beer. "The Wax Works went BOOM!" I gesture wildly with my hands and have to grab the counter in order to keep myself from slipping off the stool. As I right myself, I can't help but notice that the Dwarves are starting to look a little twitchy. I think that news really got them worried, but they're doing their best not to show it.
"Hey, do you suppose you could give us directions to the Caldera? We're seeing the sites." Ef Utan asks casually.
I have to admit, he's swifter on the deceptive art of conversation than I first gave him credit for. Comes from all the experience being a bodyguard for higher ups, I'm sure.
A rather drunken dwarf points out the window towards a volcano in the distance. Now how in the spheres did we miss that?
"Come on, Kenari… we're still on a schedule… remember ?" Ef Utan nudges me and hops off the stool to head to the door with the others.
"Alas, poor ale… I hardly knew ye," I mutter as I leave a gold piece on the counter as a tip and head out the door with the others. "You could've let me finish it, at least…"
"And then I'd be left dragging your drunken ass through the brambles. No thanks," he chuckles. "Now if you aren't too drunk, how about climbing up to the roof and getting a better view of that volcano for us?"
"You're such a slave driver," I mutter as I strap on my claws and work my way up the side of the building to a relatively safe perch by the chimney. "Yeah, I've got a pretty good view of it from here… I think it will only be-"
BANG! BANG! BANG!