The Outskirts of Muhar, Har'Akir
August 28th, 761, 5:56 AM; Day 164 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"Alright," Remy sighed softly. He walked over to Tomas, gently taking Mandisa into his own arms, lifting her with complete ease - the expedition had clearly left it's effects on the student's body. "We'll take her somewhere safe. There's nothing else we can do here."
"We'll... take her to the Temple of Isis," Devereux said. "It... should be consecrated ground there. We'll be... safe. As safe as we can be. Cavendish won't be looking for us. We're... not threats."
"Yeah..." Remy looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms, adjusting her slightly so that her head could lean against her chest. He had barely taken a step before adding, "I think Professor Carter thought it was hopeless, even then. Part of me wonders if he went off to die just so I would leave... just for form's sake. I've been wondering how much of everything we've done has been just for form's sake... if we made it all worse just because we couldn't let go. We all agreed, when we started, we were willing to be left behind... it was easy enough to say, but..."
All of Remy's vocabulary, all the languages he knew, failed him. "Just... come back."
"Good luck," Devereux said as the two men left, carrying Mandisa with them. It was barely more than a whisper.
As they departed, Andre felt a firm tap on his shoulder. Menetnashte stood to his side, looking up at him with her odd amused half-smile. She gestured quite explicitly to the sandalwood box in his hands, then held out her own hands expectantly. It only took the slightest movement of acquiescence on the part of the Professor for her to firmly take the box from his hands, tilting it slightly as she examined the inscriptions on the side.
After a few moments contemplation, she flipped the box open. Andre could see the remnants of several glyphs inside, now dark and crumbled, dispelled by some unknown hand. More notable to everyone else was the beating, severed heart sitting snugly inside the wooden container. The Anubite ran a finger down the heart; Andre felt a strange pressure in his chest as she did. Seemingly satisfied, the priestess picked up the heart in her left hand, letting the box fall to the ground like a discarded nutshell, burning to ash with a magnesium flare as it did so. She smiled at Andre, nodding once. Then, with no warning whatsoever, she slammed her other hand into his chest.
Andre could feel the force of it pierce through his skin, as if Menetnashte's hand had been a knife. There was an incredible squeezing pain in his chest which pulsed out through his veins, burning like fire, and for a moment the professor thought he would be torn apart from the inside. The box on the ground burst into silvery flame - a second later, the pain subsided. The Anubite removed her hand from his chest with a sickening noise, and the wound burst into silvery flame as well. The flame did not burn hot, instead twisting and turning, burning away the wound in his chest until it vanished without a mark, as if it had never been. The heavy beating sensation remained in his ears for a few seconds more, before it too subsided.
The heart that had been in Menetnashte's hand was now nothing more than a plain, ordinary stone. Menetnashte regarded it idly, then placed it into Andre's hand.
Then the ancient being simply dissipated, falling to sand that was swept away on the wind. She'd be back, but as always, on her terms.
Southern Muhar, Har'Akir
August 28th, 761, 6:24 AM; Day 164 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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b
The streets of Muhar were quiet as you passed through them. Still the very early morning, just before sunrise, most of the Akiri were in their beds. But there was more to it. There was the sense of anticipation in the air, an electrical current that needed no explanation. Whatever else would happen, it would happen now. The Akiri sensed this, and stayed in their homes.
That said, with the aid of Grimmric's aerial reconnaissance, and the tracking ability of both Sarari and Otto, finding the undead smilodon was surprisingly easy. Admittedly, finding a miniature, animated sandstorm is never that difficult, but the task was made all the simpler for the feline being engaged in a battle with a professional warmage.
CRACK-BOOM!
The thunder-clap of sound was your first intimation that this was a more complicated situation than previously thought. Sarari raised a hand for silence, and the three of you crept through the back alleys and side-streets of Muhar to the field of battle. You weren't sure what the little clearing had been, but you suspected it had been a garden of some sort, judging from the trampled greenery painstakingly and lovingly planted. Now though, blood and bone marred the pleasantry of the garden.
You came at a lull, appearing in the back of an alleyway a full hundred yards ahead. In the distance, Kommandant Marcos Vedarrak fought his deadly duel with the product of Cavendish's fell necromancy. They circled each other, waiting for a moment, having tested one another's defenses before now. Vedarrak was limping slightly, and there was a gash in his forehead that wept blood, threatening to seep into his eye and blind him at a crucial moment. His clothing was simple, barely more than a linen shirt and woolen pants, ripped and torn by the claws of the great cat. His sword, however, gleamed with an eldritch light. Marcos Vedarrak was not dead yet.
His foe, however, was, and had been for untol aeons. The cat was not unharmed either, much of its body scorched and blackened, and with a fissure running across its skull. One of the great, scimitar-sized teeth had been shattered, but the creature's paws were covered with blood. As you watched, it leapt.
Vedarrak barked a word of power, and a lightning bolt crackled forth from his sword. The great cat twisted its body aside, moving faster than something made of fossilized bone had any right to, and batted at the Falkvonian with a stone-taloned paw. The glancing blow caught Vedarrak in the ribs, opening bloody furrows in his flesh. The smilodon gave a screech of bone and dashed at the downed Falkovnian, keen to end this now.
Vedarrak rolled aside from the cat's pounce, though even at a distance you could tell that the effort cost him, and raised a hand. With a hissed incantation, an orb of semi-transparent force lashed out at the undead beast, barrelling through the creature's rib cage and shattering bones like so many twigs even as Vedarrak scrambled to his feet. It shook itself off, though you saw a wave of dead-black energy sweep over the smilodon, arcane seepage caused by the undead's deteriorating form.
Not deteriorated enough, though, as the great cat rushed Vedarrak once more, catching him in the chest with a headbutt, trying to knock him down where a few swipes of the disemboweling claws. The Falkovnian didn't duck fast enough, and was slammed bodily into the nearby wall. The smiler gave no time for mercy, but leapt once more...
...right onto Vedarrak's outstretched sword. The sorcerously augmented blade pierced the smilodon's skull, and with that, broke the connection holding that ancient spirit to its stone body. The smilodon shuddered once, and in a grand, explosion of coruscating energy, shattered into a thousand shards of bone. Vedarrak slumped against the wall, exhausted, but for the moment victorious.
Sarari watched this entire battle impassively, but seeing that the Smiler was done for, she nocked an arrow to her bow and raised it. The elf-maid, ever an intense one, aimed her bow at Vedarrak, her mind focused on nothing more elaborate than ending the Falkovnian.
"I can shoot him through the throat." Sarari said quietly. "A dead body will serve as well as a live one, and be less troublesome."
Muhar Town Square, Har'Akir
August 28th, 761, 6:24 AM; Day 164 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"I fully understand that staking
is traditional." Marcos Vedarrak admitted, watching the soldiers pile up the dry timber around the Richemuloise academic's feet. The Falkovnian Ambassador breathed in, smiling. "But there's been so many stakings already I fear the populace will become jaded, which wouldn't do at all."
"Wonderfully logical reasoning for burning a man to death, Cavendish." Sebastian said, ignoring the throbbing ache in every muscle in his body. There wasn't a mark on the linguist, not a single scar, the only bruises the results of his being manhandled to the pyre in the first place. This meant nothing. The monstrous necromancer had many ways of inflicting pain without leaving a sign.
"It's Marcos, please." Vedarrak smiled pleasantly, even as the soldiers ignored what the linguist said. They didn't even twitch, just placidly continued their work. "We're all friends and colleagues here, aren't we?"
"I don't believe I've murdered many of my friends or colleagues." Marchand-Renier retorted.
"Just a brother." The Kommandant sniped as he left Marchand-Renier and waved Lieutenant Lebrecht Schiffer over. That officer rode up, looking even less of a Falkovnian
ubermensch than usual atop his huge black charger. Schiffer saluted, and Vedarrak spoke. "Any sign of the escapees?"
"No sir." Lebrecht shook his head, his eyes straying towards the pyre. "I'm sure they'll turn up soon sir. It's probably not necessary to execute the hostage yet, they returned the last time we were seperated without incident."
"Situation has changed, Lieutenant." Vedarrak said smoothly. "Now then, stay on the alert. If it's not the escapees, we may have Akiri troublemakers to worry about."
"Yes sir." Lieutenant Schiffer said stolidly, glancing back at the nearly abandoned compound. The security was absurdly tight for a simple execution. "I'll do another sweep."
"Good idea, Lieutenant."
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"See anything, Luther?" Lebrecht pulled up Flea beside the ranks of Falkovnian soldiers to the north, scanning the horizon as he did so. "The Kommandant is expecting trouble."
"No sir. Haven't seen a soul." The veteran soldier reported, checking over the light crossbow in his hands with the air of a man getting ready for battle. The entire force was on edge.
"Very well then." Lieutenant Schiffer glanced back at his commander, who was pleasantly talking to the prisoner. Lebrecht made a decision, and hoped fervently that his guess was right. If it wasn't... Schiffer put it from his mind. "If you see the escapees, take care to not fire unless fired upon. And report to me at once."
"Report to you, yes sir." Luther was an old enough campaigner to know what wasn't being said just as well as what was. Quietly, the soldier asked. "You're expecting something, Lieutenant?"
"I am." Lebrecht wheeled Flea around and continued his sweep. "Azalin take me if I know what."
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The village square of Muhar was a regular bustle of activity when the members of the Expedition skulked into the smallest and darkest alleyway they could find. It seemed as though every Falkovnian in Muhar had been gathered into the square, lined up in neat ranks and files, watching all of them bristling with swords and crossbows and enough ammunition to depopulate a small region. Most of them were on foot, but at least eight horsemen rode circuits or stood their ground amongst them. The compound, however, looked abandoned.
All of this was gathered, it seemed, for but a single purpose. In the middle of the square a platform had been set up, currently being piled high with a variety of flammable material. Tied to a stake in the middle of the platform as Professor Sebastian Marchand-Renier, looking on the whole as if he had seen better days. Standing a few feet away was Marcos Vedarrak, clad in armor and with a flowing cape behind him, as martial a vision as one could imagine.
Looking through the ranks, you soon spotted a few familiar faces. Both Niklas and Luther, the two Falkovnians who had accompanied you to the Temple of Osiris were among them, on the north side, and you spotted Lieutenant Schiffer making his rounds. Well, better to say you first spotted his horse, as Flea was a beast that was memorable, to put it mildly.
Kuzan's keen eyes, however, spotted one other thing. Out of the corner of his vision he caught a glimpse of a familiar hat, a brown coat fluttering softly in the morning breeze. Professor Carter was kneeling on the roof of the building across from you, practically unnoticeable from the street level, but now that you knew he was there you could pick him out against the red-brown rooftop. The archeologist looked dead tired, his expression dull and glassy-eyed. His clothes were torn and stained black with old blood; dried crimson rivulets poured down his face, streaming from three ugly, parallel scars on his cheek. As you watched, he slowly and mechanically checked his rifle, ensuring that no sand had gotten into the trigger mechanism, before lowering it back down again. As he lifted the gun to check it, you caught sight of his hand: a gruesome crosshatch of tears and cuts had nearly removed all the skin from the back of it. The desert wind through the square whipped sand across his broken flesh, yet if it bothered Carter, he gave no sign, returning his gaze down to the execution proceeding in the main square.
PCs:
A - Andre Theroux
L - Lia Mournswaithe
T - Tomas Eisenwald
K - Kuzan
S - Sascha Dzemianovitch
Expedition NPCs:
D - Dieter Haulfstead
C - Thomas Carter
Mr - Sebastian Marchand-Renier
H - Edmund Harris
Falkovnians:
V - Marcos Vedarrak
L - Lebrecht Schiffer
N - Niklas
Lu - Luther
