Lif shrugged “So Trouble and Scarface stay up here picking out curtains...anyone else care to opt out of this little visit to Yula's Clinic?”
Caine smirked. “I will stay as well, keep an eye on them, hopefully get word to Kraddock.”
Eduwiges nodded grimly. “I for one am ready to go invade this clinic...It is about time we stopped hiding and found some answers.”
Xandilif nodded. “Lately every time we look for answers we find more questions…but lets give it a shot as soon as night falls.”
The company waited through a long, and almost disturbingly quiet afternoon until the moon began to rise in the Gondorian night.
Having climbed up atop a crumbling wall to get a better look around in the darkness, Septimal Caine, Executor of Elendil’s Vanguard shook his head, concerned. "Still...no sign of anyone seeking us, even checking the post road....why not? If the old man could figure out where we might be, someone else certainly could have.'
As the company prepared their equipment in the firelight, no one had a good answer.
Nethrida seemed frustrated that she wouldn't be part of the investigation of the clinic. Her cough had softened, but her fever and the resulting weakness remained. Even as she laid in the grass and shivered a little bit, she murmured a slightly rebellious "I hate that I cannot go..."
Carneryn furrowed her brows and moved to take Neths hand "You really should be closer to the fire... I will watch over you and your fool of a Mother." she said surprisingly gently given the rest of her antics that day. "The rest of you should get going before the adorable idiot changes her mind."
Addiela ignored Ryn, taking the moment of respite to focus her mind and prepare herself mentally for what they might be able to face. Her back was turned to the group and though she appeared from that angle to be watching for anyone approaching, her eyes were closed.
Xandilif watched Addie silently...quietly sliding SilverWand back across her back and checking the straps of her heavy armor, making certain it remained surprisingly soundless.
Orden, formerly the Mayor of Linhir, called them over and took a stick, smoothing a patch of dirt. He quickly drew a decent approximation of the coastline...."Here is Linhir proper...here are the docks...along this cliff face here, if you keep going you will reach the mouth of the smuggler's cove...but all along this cliff are the cave entrances to the undercity. About….here should be the entrance to the clinic....'
Eduwiges looked at everyone and cracked her knuckles, 'Then if we are going let’s get going. I want to get to the bottom of this and then back into a tavern sometime soon!'
Finchley checked her daggers for a moment and then looked to the map drawn in the dirt again, committing it to memory. "Somethin' tells me you've used these cave entrances a lot before..."
Ordan nodded. "Yes. but they were built a long time before I used them...the town was based on them in fact. Just watch your step...Things can get slippery in the dark...'
Addiela muttered under her breath, "Especially when traveling with a snake.."
Leaving Nethrida, Ryn, Caine and Neth’s unconscious mother behind, Ordan led Xandilif, Finchley, Addie and Eduwiges down and around, along paths that clearly were seldom used, or made to appear so. Finally they found themselves on the beach just beyond the town. From here they could see the lights of Linhir at the top of the cliff above them.'
As she looked up at the firelights twinkling, Addie could feel wisps of the same sensations she remembered from the halls of lore in Mina Tirith....dark magic, necromancy....something she couldn’t quite put your finger on. It made her deeply uneasy.
Ordan pointed at one dark section of the cliff. "Should be about there....ya can’t see it so well but that should be the cave we want.”
Finchley looked to where the old man pointed, then cautiously headed towards that dark spot, leaning to one side a bit as if to see better. Of late she had fallen naturally into a role as pathfinder and scout for the company.
Addiela however reached out her hand and stopped Finch. She looked back to the way they come and for a moment it seemed as though she was going to stay right there or run. She shook her head as if dispelling a bad dream and her eyes turned to Ordan. "You said you sensed him? How do you know? How can you feel him? He's here.. or something like him... speak, and I need you to speak true."
Ordan paused...squinting out to sea for the moment as he collected his thoughts. "The last time I saw Erach....a few weeks before Sarick set out for Angmar, he had a...thing with him...called him a colleague. A dwarf I guess, but with a glint in his eye I had never seen before. Erach was a nasty bill of goods, and I had grown up around thugs and thieves all my life....but this dwarf....I never saw evil before or since like the look in that bastard's eye. He was no dwarf, not really...I to this day don't know what he was, but I got a powerful sense of him....that sense would haunt me. I hope to never see his like again.” Ordan sighed. "A few weeks back...I had a dream....I know, just a crazy old man....but when you lot came here I realized it wasn’t just a dream.'
The old man pointed at Addie...."You were in it for one thing, missy.'
Addiela raised her brow and her face paled, and it was in that moment that she knew this crazy old man wasn’t just some normal cutpurse. She took in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "I'm not sure that I wish to hear it, but will probably be necessary."
Eduwiges looked at her sword hilt, the gems were dark, and she glanced back along the path behind them, covering the rear. She looked up ahead and whispered, 'We can chit chat when we are undercover again. Get moving!'
Addiela looked at her friend, her eyes shadowed and her voice low, 'No, Eduwiges. Whatever lies ahead is dark... necromancy….perhaps even worse. Haste is not a good idea.'
Eduwiges grimaced, swore obscenely and backed up a bit. "Not again...."
Addiela made sure that Finch could see her glance down to where the brand was on her hip before she looked the woman back in the eyes again. "I'm not certain how -that- will react."
Finchley frowned at Addie and rested a hand over her left hip. "... I-I think it'll be fine. And even if it isn't, I'll not run, Addie."
Eduwiges pulled her sword Badue Druit off her back and held it loosely in her hands... 'You said nothing of necromancy, old man before we left. I promise you, if this is some kind of trap, your head will roll on the ground before mine...'
Ordan walked along the beach, skillfully stepping along wet sand towards the cave. "I didn’t say anything about Necromancy because I don't know anything about Necromancy or such nonsense...evil I know, but the rest of that is for suckers and marks if you ask me.'
Ordan climbed up along the rocks, reaching a cave mouth, one of several dotting the basalt cliff...there were signs of a fire pit at the mouth, but it hadn’t been used in a few months from the look of it'
Addiela clenched her teeth together; she didn’t want to proceed, but now she couldn’t let Ordan out of her sight. "I don't like this.. not one bit.." she said and then reluctantly followed after the old man, the others trailing behind her. “What was the dream?'
Ordan paused at the broad mouth of the cave and looked back at Addie. “The dream....You were there Miss, in a dark robe...singing...then I felt something like glass breaking around me, and you stopped...and I was standing in the town square when a wind picked up, blowing all around me, lifting me off my feet...and I came down, hard....and I saw that damn gnome, standing over me....he just stared at me and then opened his mouth to talk...and I woke up.....But the feeling ain’t gone away. I still feel him, standing over me. I have felt it ever since that dream. Every day since…'
Xandilif peered into the cave mouth...."This goes a long way back...and from the dirt, it has been well used...marks down on the beach there....boats have been pulled up on those rocks pretty regular.” She looked at Finchley. "You sure you ok Babygirl?
Finchley just looked at Lif for a moment, gaze drifting to SilverWand again before shrugging. "Well, not really. But like I said, I ain't runnin'."
Addiela watched her footing as she followed behind Ordan. "How fortunate for us, then, that I am not wearing dark robes."
One last look around, and Xandilif slipped SilverWand off her shoulder while stepping into the dark cave...."Greyhound, get a torch lit.
Seeing that this place had been used by others for a long time, Eduwiges reached down into the debris and pulled an old tar torch from the ground. She sparked a flint, once, twice, then cursed again before finally getting the torch to light, Thankfully the tar was not spread too far and so the light was just enough to light the path.
Ordan looked around at he signs of activity in surprise. "I always knew that old busy body liked her secrets...but this is something else...too much use for just a back road to the beach.'
Xandilif moved deeper into the cave until Ordan joined her. "How far is this damn thing supposed to go? I am not seeing a door for this key....
Ordan looked around, years of experience in the shadows coming to the fore. "Look, the cave branches here...one of these should lead to the undercity...but this one ahead of us...this one should move around about to the basement of the clinic, if I haven’t gotten turned around. " He and Lif stepped into what seemed to be a sort of chamber with numerous smaller caves branching off. The remains of another firepit was in the middle, surrounded by broken crates, discarded weapons and quite a few bones.
Ordan whistled low, kicking a broken mace with one boot. "What the devil was old Yula up to?'
Finchley followed after Lif and Ordan and looked about the chamber herself, wincing at the sight of bones. She moved towards the broken crates and leaned over one of them to see if she couldn’t figure out what was once in them. She noticed torn bags, filled with the remains of what smelled like spices, with words in strange languages written on the crates. “Was this cave used by….smugglers?” she asked herself. If so, then why all the bones? Was someone selling them?"
Addiela reached down for one of the bones, muttering "Please forgive me, whoever you were..." and brought it over to the torch to inspect it for any markings that the fire might reveal. While doing this she also kept it in the back of her mind that she had been told that a person's remains were needed in order to bring them back from the dead. She tried to keep her mind from going back to that place it was in while she was studying in the Old Archives, but the scene and what she sensed brought back those memories.
As Addie moved to replace the bone, the skull of a nearby skeleton would begin to topple...but stopped abruptly and simply looked at Addie with empty eye sockets...the mouth slowly opening, gravity causing the jawbone to drop. Addie stared at it, a bit transfixed.
Then the skeleton screamed.
A bony hand suddenly gripped Finchley's ankle as the skeleton facing Addie slowly rose. Bones seeming to flow over it like water as it grew larger.
Eduwiges spun, seeing motion all around the walls and noting the skeleton rising towards Addie. She readied herself for action.....and her torch went out. Now reduced to just the moonlight from the distant cave mouth, the cave was nearly pitch black. There was a metallic rasp as Ordan drew his short sword.
Finchley drew her daggers and attempted to shake the bony hand off of her ankle. "Wha- Let go!"
Trying not to panic, Addiela slowly and gently placed the bone back down right where she had gotten it from and patted it with her hand. "Right... I should have been mindful, don't disturb the dead... Another lesson learned." While she was speaking, she slowly unfastened the staff from her back and now swung it right for that screaming skull. "My apologies sir or madame... Rest in peace!”
Sadly the staff bounced off the skeleton’s head, with little apparent effect as it rose to its full height, a rusted blade in one bony hand...Ordan stepped around Addie suddenly, slashing low into the shadow with his short sword. There was a crash of scattering bones in the darkness and the skull rolled to Addie's feet, now silent.
Dropping the useless torch, Edu pivoted to face the tunnel’s mouth, realizing that skeletons had been filling in behind them, just beyond the light of the torch. Now without torchlight blinding her, she could see them silhouetted by the moonlight. They were trapped.
Finchley kicked away from the random hands that were scuttling across the floor at her, as Lif grabbed her by the back of the armor and pull her up and away. She looked towards where they had entered after she was set back on the ground again and her eyes widen at the sight of more skeletons.
After hearing the skeleton clatter to the floor, Addie reached into her bag to feel for her flint and steel as she made her way over to where she remembered seeing the firepit. She struck several times, frantically trying to ignite a source of light to combat this darkness.
Meanwhile Eduwiges kept her cool despite the bones clattering. She swung her sword around the outside of her body and lunged at the first of the skeletons, aiming to take its head off. She did so and the tide hesitated, but the shadow at the mouth of the tunnel seemed to be shifting, growing...The clattering grew louder, all around them...disturbing, distracting.
Feeling the air growing ice cold around them, Addie puts her hand down in cold ash, and struck the flint and steel again and again even as a soft voice in her soul kept repeating…”Call on me..call on me and I will answer….call on ME…” Finally, a weak flame sprang to life, bathing the cave in flickering light. "No..." she whispered. "I will do this MYSELF..."
In the firelight, they could see bones practically crawling out of the mud and stone of the walls, forming misshapen travesties...nightmares of creatures that never were. Addie hissed. "The Necromancy of Angmar...of Erach and of Mans."
Ordan moved back towards the fire...the clattering was getting louder, voices beginning to form in the noise...he looked around at the four or five cave mouths in the chamber...thinking, then pointed at one with his sword. "THAT ONE...there should be a door at the end of it that takes that key...MOVE...we stay here we join these bastards!"'
In fact at the mouth of the tunnel, the bones have assembled into a hulking monstrosity, the voices around you making shark, clipped words...chanting...”DROOG...DROOG!”
Finchley looked behind her to where Ordan was and nodded. She moved towards the cave mouth Ordan had indicated, walking backwards to keep an eye on Edu who she just knew was gonna wanna keep fighting instead of running, and Lif who had better be coming and hopefully would bring Edu if Edu did decide to try and fight.
Addiela had been about to attempt to nurture the tiny flame she had started into the glorious fire it had always been meant to be, but at hearing the chanting of Droog, she gave it an apologetic look, grabbed her staff and runs in the direction Ordan had pointed to, no questions asked. She muttered to herself, “Will we NEVER be rid of that freakish troll?”
Hearing Addie’s words, Eduwiges planted her feet. “Leave that to me…” She pirouettes and brought her greatsword across where the knees should be on Droog, even a skeletal Droog, attempting to hamstring him and bring him down.
Bones flew in all directions after a solid hit and Edu let out a shout of triumph, but they were quickly reforming.
Xandilif let Addie rush past, then shoved Finchley behind her. "HorseImp...catch Babygirl! Greyhound...let's GO...now!”
Addiela had been sprinting down the direction Ordan pointed in, but at hearing her name, she turned in time to get bowled over by a hurled Finchley. She tumbled down the path, feet over head and when she finally came to a rest, she popped up to glare at Lif, "Really Banshee?!" before she bent down to help Finch up to run with her.
In their wake, Eduwiges did not hesitate, content with the one blow she had struck and at Lif's command she racesd after the group.
Xandilif stepped aside once more, letting Edu past....."Let's go old man...." and started for the cave mouth herself.
As the man scrambled to follow, a familiar whistle was heard as the shadow raised what looked to be a massive club and brought it down, crushing stone and bones and firepit...and nearly Ordan who just barely threw himself into the tunnel after Lif.
As the darkness descended again, Xandilif tossed the heavy brass Key to Finchley. The tunnel continued for a bit, but at the end they could make out a heavy steel door. Behind then however the clattering was continuing, but changing....something was pursuing them, bones flowing down the tunnel like a giant serpent.
Finchley somehow managed to catch the key before reaching the door at a sprint. The lock was old and obvious...but appeared rusted and battered. She hesitated, unsure what would be on the other side.
Eduwiges reached Addie and Finchley, turning to face any foe that might reach them before Finch got the door open. She moved her hair out of her eyes and wiped the sweat and dirt from her forehead, 'Anytime now little sister! Anytime!'
Xandilif looked behind, her elven eyes seeing what the others couldn’t...the enormous serpent’s head, formed of twisting bones, fangs gleaming, studded with shattered blades. "Ummm….We still have company....we got no choice Babygirl and no more TIME, open it!”
Finchley got that key in the keyhole and was shocked that the lock clicked easily, as if well oiled and tended.. She threw her weight backwards, tugging the steel door open. However, before she could dash inside, she noticed a thin length of fishing line along the doorway, at about ankle height.
The girl immediately put her hands out to the side to halt anyone attempting to rush in. She looked over her shoulder at everyone and then nodded down to her feet, which she lifted up and over the length of fishing line.
Addiela nodded and did likewise but Eduwiges was staggering backwards and had seen no warning, breaking the wire against the heels of her boots...a sharp twang was heard then a brief but ominous silence.
Just behind her, Ordan gave a shout and pulled Edu back towards him just as a splashing sound was heard. Eduwiges tumbled towards Ordan and a thick green liquid splashed the stone behind her, smoking and hissing, narrowly missing her.'
The old man caught her, smirking. "Sorry honey, you’re too young for me...'
Eduwiges regained her breath and looked down at the melting stone, swallowing hard. At a loss for words, she muttered, 'I really don't like you old man', and started to follow Addie again.
Ordan shrugged. “All my future wives have said that…” and carefully stepped over the acid along with Xandilif, looking up a long spiral staircase that the others were already climbing.
Finchley let out the breath she hadn't known she was holding and looked upwards. "... I really hope this leads up to where we're supposed to go." Without further ado, she very carefully continued to ascend, stepping as lightly and quietly as possible.
At the top of the stairs, they found another door, this one left ajar. Finchley paused for just a second or two and leaned to one side to see if she could peek through the doorway. Seeing no skeletons or other nasties and detecting no tripwires, she pushed the door open to reveal a room with four beds..one seeming to be prepared for emergency surgeries. It was kept surprisingly clean and orderly. On one wall however was a weapons rack, and on the other, cabinets containing belongings and knapsacks and several changes of clothing. On the wall was a red banner with a large black eye painted on it, dominating the scene. One other door was in the room. Xandilif opened it carefully and peer inside."More stairs, going up.”
Finchley sighed. "I think we've made it. It looks like a clinic to me..."
Ordan shook his head. “No..Yula's clinic has only one bed....this looks to be...her basement. That little minx, she had a whole outlaw hospital down here....and I never had a clue.'
Finchley glanced through the cabinet. The clothing was a diverse mix...all plain, simple, local...different sizes and styles. Disguises it seemed. A desk was to one side, with piles of books and scrolls...an anatomy diagram....and in the top of the desk was a knife, driven point down through what looked to be parchment.
Addiela's face went pale. "No..." After the events at The Thirsty Seer she still had nightmares about knives stuck in parchment.
Xandilif reached out and pulled it free. "Just a knife, Horseimp....” The parchment under it would be covered in clean, precise script. The Champion glanced at them and handed them to Addie. She was reluctant to take the papers at first, but relented and read the page aloud.
((See HERE))
Ordan snorted. "Milkfat? That little bitch....So Annedyl is behind all of it? Seems like her plan is going well as she is due to marry the new Mayor by the weekend. Her father consented.'
Finchley shook her head at Ordan. "Nah, that ain't actually Ane. It's... someone wearin' her so to speak."
Before she could explain more, they both turned to watch Xandilif mumble to herself...."Secret cache....." after a few minutes, she pulled the drawers of the desk out. Finding one was false, she simply beat in the side of the desk then reached in and scatters papers on the desk, along with a pouch of red stones...
Addiela folded the 'manifesto' and tucked it into her satchel as she watched what Lif did, then gathered those papers and maps to to look over later.
Eduwiges was growing impatient. “We shouldn’t be lingering here too much longer, I have a weird feeling…”
Ordan suddenly shushed them all, listening at the door that Lif had found. “Voices, upstairs...sounds like Roric and his bride....she is searching the place, looking for a something.'
Xandilif spat..."Something like that confession maybe? maybe she should have thought about that before she killed Yula. However, I hate to be the bearer of bad news...but up those stairs is the only other way out of here, and we ain’t gonna be able to go back the way we came....”
Finchley bit her lip and looked towards the stairs leading further up. "Out of the fryin' pan and into the fire."
The elf snorted. “Why is it always food with you? Well, seems like it is time we had another chat with Ane…or should I say Mans....”
Addie glared at the closed door for a moment longer then reached to pull it open. "Oh I wish for more than just a chat…"
