The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl: Every Day a Walk In The Park... Options

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The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl: Part Seven

Darius, according to Master Demnevanni, ran his office out of the Madach Tradehouse in Gnisis. So, after translocating there after breaking my fast, I made my way into the lower half of the “shell” that comprised the Tradehouse. Darius was short, stocky, and clad in gorgeous armour – all gilded metal with a flowing red cape. He looked up at me and said, “So, you want to join the Legion do you Citizen Vahl? Well, it’s true that we have a shortage of Manpower ~ and Merpower for that matter. You look capable enough. Tell me, are you capable of following orders?”

“Excellent,” he said when I assured him I was. “It’s a Mer’s life in the Legion. Every day a walk in the park, every meal is a banquet, every pay check a fortune. It’ll make a Ma... Mer of you. Right, Recruit Vahl, here is your regulation-issue chain cuirass. You will wear it when you address a superior officer, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes… sir,” I replied.

Darius shook his head. “The first and last word I want to hear out of your mouth when you address me is ‘Sir’. Now sound out like you got a pair. Do you understand me?”

“Sir, yes Sir,” I said in a clear voice, desperately trying to ignore the sniggering Orc in the corner of the room.

“Outstanding,” he said. “Now get that cuirass on and I’ll give you your orders.

“You might be wondering,” he said once I’d got the chain cuirass in place, “why I am billeted in the Tradehouse? Well, it’s because we have no room to expand. The widow Vabdas has a parcel of land the Legion needs to expand. I want you to come back to me with the deeds as quickly as possible. Is that understood?”

“Sir, yes Sir,” I replied, turning to march out of the room. As I went up the stairs, I heard General Darius addressing the Orcish Trooper, “gro-Khazor, what is your major malfunction?”

Vabdas had a house just west of town, out past Arvs-Drelen, so it wasn’t difficult to get to. Her reaction, when I spoke to her about the land-deed was to slap me across the face ~ hard. I suppressed the spells that roared into my mind and, speaking carefully, said, “you would be wise not to do that again.”

“Why?” she snapped, and now I could see the tears in her eyes. “Because you’ll kill me like you did Mansilamat?”

“I assure you ma’am,” I told her, “I had no part in the death of Mansilamat. Tell me what happened…” Bit by patient bit, I dragged the story from her. It seems that her husband, the aforementioned Mansilamat, had gone to the Egg-Mine at Gnisis to get some eggs. There, according to the widow, the Legion had killed her husband.

As I walked back towards Gnisis, I reflected that whatever power controls my life has an infinite capacity for capriciousness. What should have been the simple acquisition of a deed to some land had now become a murder investigation. Of course, that was how General Darius saw it and he told me to obtain proof that the Legion had been involved. Fortunately, the guard at the door of the Egg-Mine proved amenable to my charming behaviour and, after checking that there was nobody watching, he gave me the key to the door.

There was a familiar stink about the mine, one that I remembered from the Mudan-Mul Mine. Drawing my sword, I advanced with some care. Fortunately, whatever was blighting the mine was confined to the lower quarters and the Scribs in the upper chambers were not aggressive. I wish the same could be said of Trooper gro-Ogdum. The Orc gave me a three count to get the Oblivion out of the area he was guarding. As quickly as I could, I chose one of the passages and headed off down it. From up ahead I could hear the drip-drip of water and a strange noise ~ like wind. As I rounded the corner, I came upon the source of the sound. There, in the middle of the passage, was an Ancestral Spirit.

“Hear me Mortal,” it moaned, as I made ready to swing my sword, “Stay your hand ~ I am Mansilamat Vabdas, I was murdered, most foully, by the Orc Lugrub gro-Ogdum. I beg you, avenge me…” The last syllable was drawn out as the spectre faded from view. I knew that the word of an apparition would carry no weight with General Darius: I needed more proof. I found it in the depth of the pool nearby ~ the corpse of Mansilamat and a notched Imperial axe.

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Ignoring the (mostly) good-natured ribbing the soldiers gave me about my furs; I checked my provisions before striking off eastwards. There was, according to the map, a stone there ~ this one represented by a readily identifiable ‘sun’ icon. The Sun-Stone wasn’t difficult to find, in fact Saenus had pointed it out to me only the day before yestere. Standing on the edge of the bay that housed the smuggler’s cave, I could easily see the top of the massive stone above the trees.

The stone stood atop a tall hill, explaining why it was so easily visible. As I approached, the chorus of voices spoke again, “Go thou west to the Halls of Penumbra. There free the warmth of the Sun.”

West it is then. Heading down the hillside, I saw that there was a break in the trees, beyond them was a broad stream. Beyond that a ridge of stone rose from the plain and I could clearly see a valley between high walls of stone. Taking careful sightings from the sun, it became obvious that ‘heading west’ would take me right into the defile and, presumably, these ‘Halls of Penumbra’.

Not many people have seen walking trees, not when sober anyway. However, this was the bizarre sight that met me as I walked down into the meadow at the foot of the hill. Out of the trees to the north stepped a tall feminine figure, green as freshly stripped wood and bearing what appeared to be bark clothing. The face was fairly attractive and my first thought was that it was some form of dryad. I was quickly disabused of that notion as, spotting me, the tree broke into a run ~ straight towards me. If the massive claw-like hands were not enough of a clue that the creature meant me harm, the wailing shriek it made as it closed the distance was.

Drawing the Wish, I spat on my palms and hefted the axe. As the creature approached, I ducked under the slashing claws and drove the axe-blade deep into the ‘flesh’ of the creature. The flailing limbs made attacking the creature difficult but it was relatively slow-moving so I was able to move around it, laying the Wish into it as I did so. Hacking and chopping, I finally felled the creature ~ with a wail it fell backwards, unbending and unyielding.

“Attacked by a tree,” I thought with some amusement as I wiped the sweat from my brow. I was just about to return the Last Wish to my pack when there was a flare of sickly green light from the fallen creature. To my horror, it twitched and then rose to its feet and started stalking towards me again. With a curse I unleashed a barrage of fireballs at the creature, watching in satisfaction as the green ‘flesh’ started to shrivel and burn.

You can probably imagine how I felt when the Oblivion-cursed creature flared with light for a third time and rose ~ apparently no worse for having already been killed twice ~ and started stalking towards me again. I had visions of myself, untold centuries from now, standing here at the base of the hill battling this creature. I hammered the wish into the creature again and again, supplementing my attack with the odd spell. Finally the creature toppled for a third time. Panting, I stood there eying it suspiciously in case it resurrected itself again. The third time seemed to be the charm however, as the creature didn’t stir again.

Apart from a couple of wolves, nothing else blocked my approach to the Halls of Penumbra which turned out to be a series of caves in the ice rather than a stone hall ~ which is what I had expected. Inside, the caverns were dark, far darker than any other tomb, shrine, or cave I’ve ever been in. Even the light of a torch failed to illuminate much of the caves. Made cautious by the strange noises I could hear in the dark and the darkness itself, I advanced into the caverns. The layout of the caves was fairly simple, getting to the end of them proved to be a lot harder.

The downwards sloping passage wended its way through the ice-covered rock, the thin covering of crystals crunching under foot as I made my cautious way along them. My flickering torch threw strange reflections off the smooth walls but failed to penetrate the darkness ahead of me. Which was a shame for, if it had, it would have shown me the misshapen figure shuffling up the passage towards me before it got so close.

With a yelp, I thrust the torch into the malformed features of the tar-coloured creature, shoving it away from me so that I could draw my sword. The brute recoiled, hissing, but seemed undamaged by the flame. In the gloom, I hacked and chopped at the creature as it spat and struck out at me. It bore no weapons but was extremely skilled with its feet ~ the hobnailed boots it wore adding to the force of the impact.

Shaking slightly from the encounter, I took another torch from my pack and lit it before bending to examine the corpse at me feet. Man-shaped, the skin of the beast was dark brown, almost black. The emaciated features also bore Mannish overtones. Naked except for a breech-clout and the aforementioned boots, the Draugr (as I later discovered these corrupted Men were called) had not been a particularly formidable foe ~ although its sudden appearance from the darkness had startled me badly. As I started to stand, I noticed that the creature was exuding a sticky black liquid. Opening my alchemical pouch, I took out a small phial and scraped up a sample.

There were more of these creatures in the caverns, and none of them seemed reluctant to press an attack. One-on-one, the Draugr were easy to defeat but, on more than one occasion, I found myself surrounded by a couple or more ~ then the fight was a little less easy. I quickly discovered that Draugr have no sense of self-preservation and that simply standing there and whipping my sword around at head-height (Draugr head height that is) I could inflict a large number of serious injuries that would make subsequent combat easier. To my relief, I found their numbers were less the deeper I went into the halls.

And deep it was, I had been walking down the constant slope of these tunnels for a while now, and they showed no signs of levelling off. I must be deep, deep underground and I began to wonder if there was ever going to be an end to this descent. Of course, no sooner had that happy thought filtered through my mind than the tunnel came to a level and continued on. Slightly cheered by this, although the strange piping noise from ahead was disconcerting, I pressed on. As I rounded the curve of the passageway, I saw the source of the strange noise.

Ahead of me a massive grey-skinned creature with curving tusks and massive claws blocked the tunnel. Glittering patches on its skin that looked like ice-crystals shone in the light of my torch. Seeing me, its strange piping noise increased in volume as it lumbered towards me. Not wishing to engage in sword-play with the creature ~ the reach of those long, muscular arms was massive ~ I backed away and unleashed a probing fireball. The creature screamed, the sound making me cover my ears. Encouraged by this, I unleashed a barrage of fireballs, one after the other, down the corridor ~ fighting the urge to cover my ears as I did so.

As I walked past the creature, I paused long enough to examine it. I had heard, back at Frostmoth, the soldiers talking of ‘Ice-Trolls’ ~ was this, I wondered, one of those? One thing did catch my attention as I squatted on my heels and looked at the monstrous form. One of its eyes appeared to be made of a faintly glowing yellow crystal. With a shrug, I got up and headed down the passageway, the returning echoes indicating that I was getting close to the end of the well named Halls of Penumbra.

Having reached the end of the caverns, I was faced with a wall of an ice-like substance. Behind it, glimmering faintly was a yellowish light. No blade or magic could make a dint in the wall, leaving me with a conundrum. As I studied the wall, I remembered the strangely glowing eye of the last troll-like creature. Backtracking to where the corpse lay, I heaved it over and studied the bestial features. There was no doubt in my mind; the creature’s right eye was made of a faintly glowing crystal. Slipping my dagger from its sheath in my boot, I drove the point of the blade between the crystal and the bone, levering upwards. I grimaced as, with a gristly sound, the ‘eye’ of the creature came out of the socket.

As I approached the wall, I could feel the crystal in my hand vibrating. Clutching the now wildly oscillating crystal, I slammed my hand against the hall. The ice-like substance splintered and cracked like glass and I yelped as a blinding light filled my vision. When the swirling shapes and eerie after-images had cleared from my vision, I saw that the chamber beyond the wall was empty. There was, however, a fundamental change to the caverns that was instantly noticeable.

When I’d entered, the Halls of Penumbra had been filled with an eldritch darkness that seemed to swallow light. Now the ice-caves seemed almost cheery, torches that I’d been unable to ignite now burned merrily and the ice-formations scintillated and gleamed in the light of my passing torch. Leaving the caverns behind and heading east towards the stone, I was immediately aware that I had wrought something amazing. A soft yellow glow suffused the surface of the black stone spike, glimmering gently in the gathering gloom.

I could have returned to the Fort for the night but my experiences with the walking tree had soured me to the idea of stumbling through the forest at night. Instead I sought a place to pitch my tent. As luck would have it, there was a Barrow close to the Sun-Stone ~ Skogsdrake Barrow. The sole occupant of the tomb was another of those corpses encased in ‘ice’ and I didn’t think that he’d mind a little company for the night.