Part 22 - Getting to know you

The cave is dark, but dry. Kedra, Melinda, and I rush inside. Kedra deposits the man nearby and the strange creature waits expectantly at his side. I have Cutie Pie stay hidden, and he seems happy to frolic about in the storm.

And then, we realize we’re not alone! The sound of hooves clip – clopping in the darkness, come toward us. Our advisory is well hidden in the darkness at the opposite end of the cave mouth. Suddenly, a terrible crash comes from the entrance. Our way out was caving in, trapping us in darkness!

“No, not here!” Melinda says with a gasp. What did she mean by that? Obviously there was something she knew about this cave that was yet to be shared. After all, Kedra did say this was where ice was stored and that it was used for…quarantine?

As we panic to find light before we’re consumed by the unknown creature, there’s a snap, and then an aura of light brightens the small area around us. It was coming from the seal man and he was awake! He introduces his name as Sanji and his little friend, that he calls a penguin. It reminds me of a toy I used to see rocking in the window of a trading shop in Eporhtnacyl. If you squeezed it it would make a Kuuuuuuuuah sound. I never cared for the toy, like I don’t really care for the real thing. Something about its buggy eyes was creeping me out…but I suppose…I turned my head sideways as if that would improve my view of the creature. It stared at me with its mouth agape and wiggled its strange little tongue. Nope! It was definitely creepy!

The hooves tip toed around in the darkness. Was the creature trying to sneak up on us? “Hello?” I shout into the darkness beyond.

“Hello,” comes a husky reply. Great, there was someone else trapped in the same cave with some creature lurking about. I could still hear it tip toeing, sneaking, trying to find its way toward us. We were all in danger! I reach for Shodan, preparing to smite my enemy.

Hello, master, I hear Shodan’s voice, full of rebuke, in my mind, Thinking of using me today? I think not.

“Shodan?” I say in confusion, “This is not the time! There’s something out there – ”

Not the time? Shodan mocks. It becomes rapidly clear why she was so testy, but you had the time to use Hubert. Shodan made a throat clearing sound and I instantly knew she spat after saying the swords name, You would use that inferior sword over me?

“Shodan, please!” I begged, my voice going up an octave, “Isaac was dying – died – Isaac died! I had to do something!” In a moment of anger I growled, “Can you grant wishes? I didn’t think so!”

My other hand went to Hubert’s hilt…a big mistake. Suddenly I heard two voices, Hubert and Shodan, shouting and screaming at each other like a couple of cats fighting. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t release my hold on either Shodan or Hubert. Then suddenly I feel myself throw Hubert to the floor. Shodan turns into a great sword and I feel myself arc the blade upward, my limbs being controlled by an unforeseen force.

“Shodan no!” I shout as I realize what was about to happen. Shodan shows no mercy. With a down ward stroke, she strikes Hubert, and the sword shatters into dust! “No!” I wail, “How could you Shodan? I’ll never use you again!” but as I go to sheath the weapon handle, I can feel Shodan resist me, as if arm wrestling with an invisible opponent. Her will outweighed mine.

Suddenly the blade grew hot, so much so that I could feel it burning my hand! No matter what I did though, I couldn’t release the weapon handle, “Shodan!” I complained desparately.

Promise me you’ll never use another weapon like him again, Her voice commanded.

“What? Shodan please! It hurts!”

Promise me! The handle grew hotter still.

“Okay I promise!” I said defeated. Finally, the handle goes cold and Shodan retreats from my mind. I hastily put the weapon handle away and examine my hand for damage, but it appears to be okay.

In my silence I hear Sanji conversing with someone whose voice I don’t recognize. When I look up I see a very, very, very tall being and she carries an even taller scythe. As the light illuminates her features, it becomes clear that she isn’t human, rather a mixture of all sorts of races. The clip – clopping sound was coming from her hooves!

“She’s a seccubus!” I hear Kedra blurt. She points an accusing finger at the woman. Instantly my skin crawls. As I scrutinize the woman further it becomes clear. She did share some similarities, but how would we know if this weren’t some disguise? I looked at Sanji who was babbling flirtatiously, and for a moment it seemed like he was within the seccubus’ control.

“What do you want with us, seccubus?” I demand. My hand absently reaches for Shodan as if I’d forgotten our little spat.

“What’s a seccubus?” the woman said ignorantly.

“You!” Kedra said belligerently to the woman. To us she said, “She’s only trying to lure us into trusting her, and then she’ll kill us!”

“She’s not evil,” Sanji said, siding up to the woman and brushing her arm, “If she were evil, I wouldn’t be able to touch her.”

“Seccubus’ are soul eaters!” Kedra warned, “She’ll lure us into her trap and take advantage of us when we least expect it.”

“Well if you’re going to stand around and accuse me of being a murderer, then I guess I’ll go my own way!” the woman said heatedly. She turned around and with a wave of her hand, shifted into an elf and walked off.

“My lady wait,” Sanji said, stumbling after her.

I looked at the others. Currently Sanji was our only source of light and what if the seccubus knew a way out of the cave? We followed reluctantly, but I kept my wits about me.

The woman introduces herself, Penelope, and Sanji introduces the rest of us in turn. Somehow Penelope took a liking to Sanji’s penguin – Gunther – and called for her own creature friend.

“Here, box puppy,” she calls. There’s a sound of skittering feet and then a wooden chest came bounding into view. As Penelope bends down to greet it, the chest’s velvety tongue licks her excitedly.

“Luggage?” I say dumbfounded. How did she get the Luggage?

“You know him, Cortanna?” Penelope says.

“Of course. He belonged to Isaac. When he died, the Luggage just ran off,” a creeping wave of suspicion swept over me, but Kedra beat me to the punch.

Kedra turned to me. “Maybe she’s the one responsible for Isaac’s death! Didn’t Isaac come back from the Under Dark with that hat?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Maybe she charmed him into putting the hat on so she could have the Luggage,” Kedra said. For once, Kedra was making some sense, and I found myself agreeing with her. Even though her theory was a bit farfetched I wasn’t about to let my guard down.

“You’re unbelievable!” Penelopy shouted, “If this Isaac was evil, then I’m glad he died. Don’t you think if I was trying to kill you I would have done so by now? I’m a good person, always have been.” She continued on and we followed with nothing better to do. Hopefully in our wonderings we’d find a way out.

As we keep going, our path becomes more treacherous and narrow. Suddenly we’re stopped. Penelope is stuck between the narrow walls. After some pushing and prodding, we manage to get her through. The rest of us squeeze through the narrow gap. The other side leads us into a large room. To one side there’s a group of goblins, surrounding a fire. When they notice us, I attempt to ask them for safe passage, but they’re not interested. Instead they move to attack us.

The fight turned dangerous when the room suddenly filled with smoke. Melinda was able to enchant my eyes so I could see the goblins and after then we were able to defeat them in short order.

Looking around, the room we are in appears to be well carved into the rock, as if someone had made a base there. Was this the place Kedra and Melinda were referring to? There’s dead goblins and ash all over the floor. Sanji says there’s something strange about the short swords the goblins were using. When holding one, it made your skin crawl uncomfortably.

Kedra examines two doors on the other side of the room. Both are locked and she determines one is trapped. Penelope goes to physically knock down the door, like a humanoid battering ram, when Kedra shouts, “Wait!” It’s too late. As Penelope smashes into the door, it triggers a trap, causing a pendulum to slice across the path in front of us – narrowly missing.

“I thought you said the other door was trapped,” Sanji said, a bit singed. Kedra gave him a sheepish look.

Melinda finds a key in this room with the number 1 on it. We keep it in case we need it later. As we explore the cave we narrowly encounter more trap doors. On one, Melinda and Sanji aren’t so lucky. As Melinda goes to open the door, needles fly out, peppering them all over. I heal the halfling, but she remains unconscious. Finally they regain consciousness, but Melinda is delirious. I go to touch Melinda and as soon as I do, the room goes black. I thought I’d gone unconscious, but I could still hear myself, and feel Melinda under my hand.

I try to calm Melinda, but this only seems to frighten her. Finally I let go, hoping this madness would end, but it’s still dark. When I reach for Melinda again, I can’t find her! Frantically I try to find her and I shout her name, but it’s no use. She was gone.

After a while the darkness fades and I realize we’re back in the hall where we were just minutes before. Melinda lands heavily on the ground. I try to explain to Sanji what happened, but whenever we talk, Melinda babbles in a high pitched scream.

With nothing to do until Melinda regained her senses – if she regained her senses – Sanji and Kedra decide to check out the room next door. When they come back they report there’s a strange tentacly creature chained to the wall.

Sanji tries asking the Luggage for a wand of cure poison, after Melinda had shown no improvement in their absence. Luckily the Luggage rewards him with the desired item and Melinda is cured!

Now that we were able to move on, we find another door. Melinda carefully opens this one with no harm. In this room there’s a single torch with a chest in front of it. Sanji warns us not to approach it. He throws a rock at the chest, which sticks, instead of bouncing off. A moment later, the chest suddenly slurps the rock up. As the chest opens its mouth to digest the rock, we can see a key resting inside its maw.

We quickly defeat the mimic and take its treasure, including the key. As I pick up the key – marked number 2 – I hear a voice in my head that says, So, you have come uninvited. I will consume your mind! Startled, I throw the key to the ground. Sanji picks it up and he hears the same thing. As he holds onto the key a bit longer, his limbs start to move without his control.

Supprised, Sanji puts the key down, “If its evil, it shouldn’t have worked on me,” he says.

We continue exploring, avoiding traps as best we can. Finally our path takes us to some stairs. At the bottom there’s a short hall way that opens up into a large room. A man and woman stand at an alter with unrecognizable objects. One is cutting something fleshy on the alter. They see us enter, but they don’t seem to mind our presence and continue.

Penelope mentions something about rituals and Hyroneous. Suddenly I wonder if she knows Araja, but when I ask, she shakes her head. She only knows stories of the great General.

As we come closer Sanji asks what they’re doing. The woman, in disgust, spits at Sanji’s feet and resumes her project. We rapidly realize the things their cutting up were once people! In a burst of anger, the woman thumps her staff and an icy pillar narrowly misses Penelope.

The fight is on! In a few hits the woman dies…or so we thought. Golden light flew out of her and she returns to life, this time seeming stronger. Orc that we hadn’t seen before join the fight, making it a bit difficult to focus on the woman and man – who is now chanting over the thing on the altar.

When he finishes his chant, the thing comes to life! A tentacle reaches out, wraps around him, and sucks him inside. While Penelope tries to deal with the woman, Sanji is seriously weakened by one of the orcs. Kedra rushes over to the orc and as she grabs him, dark energy passes from her into her opponent, and he turns to ash.

The woman flees the room, passing through a door behind the altar as if she were a ghost. The creature on the altar rises, taking on the shape of an ooze. I remembered oozes were weak against fire and remembered Jessica used to have a fire staff. I quickly called the luggage over and asked for it. Fortunately it coughed up the right thing, but shards, I’d forgotten how to activate it. I looked over the staff and saw an inscription written in elvish that said burn baby burn! I pointed the staff at the ooze, shouted the phrase, and a gout of fire poured over it, wounding it significantly.

I gleefully shout as I burn the ooze over and over, but then an orc distracts me. When he touches me I feel a fowl energy course through my body and I feel weakened. Kedra tries to help, but I suddenly find her two daggers sinking deeply into my flesh. As I feel myself fading, I remember my amulet. I quickly heal myself, and then char the orc to ash.

Penelope delivered the finishing blow on the ooze and the creature was no more. Sanji manages to find a religious symbol behind the altar he suspects to be some sort of key for the door the woman passed through.

We decide to take a rest in a safe dimensional room Sanji has to heal from the fight. We take turns keeping watch to see if the woman comes back. Unfortunately, we weren’t rewarded in any such way. Once rested, Sanji grabs the symbol. It seems to want to control him! Finally he’s able to put it in the door and he passes through, just as the woman had. Once we’re all through, Sanji throws the symbol on the floor.

We’re now in a larger room and the woman waits for us at the other end with a creature next to her, a Braxat. Apparently the creature was known for powerful mind control abilities and had been the one all along talking to us through the objects. We rush in to fight. The Braxat is pretty resilient against our attacks, but then Sanji turns into a many headed hydra! He takes on the Braxat with ease.

 I go after the woman again. She doesn’t look so good, but she gets away from me after hitting me with a spell. Now I’m compelled to attack my allies!

Finally the Braxat is dead and the room is clear. Penelope finds a stone door. When she opens it there’s day light on the other side. We’re free, we’re free, we’re…

We hear Penelope scream and rush to her aid. There are two more Braxat’s and they were going after Penelope. Sanji rushes in and seemed to be holding them off okay, but then Melinda runs past both creatures unharmed, as if they were ignoring her. Melinda seems to be equally shocked. Sanji kills one of the Braxat’s and Penelope bloodies the other, but just as she’s about to kill it, Melinda hops on its back and they fly up in the air.

“Melinda!” I shout, unsure what had happened. I hastily ask the Luggage for boots of flying and chase after them. The creature is fast and I’m unable to keep up. Suddenly it drops out of the sky and when it lands, it’s now doubled in size! The same size as hydra Sanji! Fortunately Sanji’s able to tear him apart and Melinda falls to the ground.

As I go to make sure Melinda’s okay, she takes flight, speeding away from us. I send Cutie Pie after her, but Melinda refuses to return. Did she intentionally cause the Braxat to fly up in the air and double inside or was she under the Braxat’s control? I call Cutie Pie back after Melinda cast a slow spell on him. Several minutes later he returns and Sanji dispels the slowness.

A while later, while we’re recovering, Melinda returns. She ran away because she thought we were angry at her for what happened with the Braxat. As it turns out she was only trying to help as best she could.

I thanked Sanji and Penelope. Despite what Penelope is, I can’t deny how helpful she’s been. I thought she would have turned on us in the cave, but she seemed to have nothing to do with the evil man and woman we’d just defeated. That being said, I’m not about to open up to her just yet. There must be a reason why she is the way she is, but it’s also clear that if we don’t show her some trust, she won’t be sticking around. Her aided protection would be most valuable now that…now that Jessica, Rekka, and Isaac are gone. I’m not even sure if Gideon and Araja will return.

Kedra has also earned my praise. It seems like this journey has done her some good. While there’s still some things she does that makes me cringe, I kind of…sort of…wouldn’t mind if she chose to stay with us. Melinda has been equally helpful. I’m sure she has lots of work to do back at Rhem, but I’d wish she’d come with us as well.