The party sat in Syllucraff's boat as they weighed their options. Would they carry on to Minauros to seek out information on the infernal machines, or remain in Malbolge to pursue their newly discovered lead in the hopes of finding allies? Both choices held the promise of great reward and perilous adventure.
"We are going to need allies if we are going to take down Fraz." Dido started as she regarded the group from her seat near the front of the craft.
"I second that." added Tidal grunting his approval.
Car was staring off down the river Styx lost in thought. The angular features of his face made him look like the tip of a ballista prepared to launch at any moment at an oncoming foe. He was not forthcoming with an opinion as he mulled over their choices.
Rachel also continued to ponder, holding onto the stack of papers they had recently recovered. She tightly held onto the stack in case the breeze might carry a sheet away. Oddly, they had not experienced any wind during their time on the boat. There had been none while they sailed, and none while they drifted.
As the group waited to form a consensus, a bright flash of golden light came from an empty bench near the back of the boat. The group had to blink several times to clear their vision. As their vision returned, the party was greeted by the form of Flewid sitting amongst them.
"Welcome back!" Rachel greeted her travelling companion with a cheery tone and a big smile.
Flewid looked around, taking in his new surroundings. He seemed a little shocked and disoriented, but quickly adjusted as this was not the first time he had blinked in and out of reality.
"Thanks." He started, still a little off put that they were no longer in Maladomini. As Flewid continued to acclimatized to being on a boat, he continued. "On to our next stop, eh?"
"Yes." Dido replied in her usual even tone. "We are in the process of deciding our next course of action."
Flewid glanced around at his compatriots, noticing their new equipment and a new satchel laying beside Rachel.
"What have I missed?" inquired Flewid.
Tidal brandished his large Greataxe as he pulled it out of it's holding strap on his back. It was almost as long as Flewid was tall and the blade glowed a deep red from what looked like veins of lave crisscrossing it's surface.
"We played some games and won some prizes!" Tidal said, beaming at his new weapon.
"And we cured my affliction." Dido added.
"Good, good." replied Flewid, nodding his head slowly. "So what are we planning on doing next?"
"We're debating between travelling to the third layer of Baator to seek out information, and possible acquisition, of an infernal machine or stay here and investigate this note we just found from some druidic spy ring." explained Caravaggio in a somewhat dismissive tone. Car kept his gaze ahead of them, not even turning to face Flewid.
"They're not a spy ring!" Rachel interjected. "They're more like a group of advisers and informants."
Car waved a hand dismissively as he continued to stare out from his seat.
"Ok." Flewid said as he nodded. "I think we should look into this druidic thing. We're here now. Might as well see where this leads."
"Then it is settled by majority vote." Dido said, as she made a subtle nod towards Syllucraff. "Can you find us a spot where we can disembark?"
Syllucraff nodded in return and with a slight twist of the forcola, the gondola began to glide along the Styx for several minuets. Slowly, the craft came up beside a small patch of pale sand at the base of the cliffs. The beach, which was a charitable description, was just large enough to hold the full party. On either side of the Styx, the basalt cliffs jutted up for several hundred meters.
"I'm guessing this is the best that can be done for a beachhead?" ruminated Car, scrutinizing the small patch of land."
"I'm afraid it is." Syllucraff replied. "There are few places to land in Malbolge."
Car nodded slightly in understanding and gathered his gear with the rest of the group.
The party made their way onto the small patch of pale sand. Rachel was the last to disembark. She paused as she was about to leave the craft and handed Syllucraff a sheet of folded parchment along with a sac of coins.
"This contains a list of the items we would like to purchase if you get the chance." Rachel said as she then proceeded to disembark from the boat.
"As a reminder," Syllucraff started, "it will take me a five day to collect all your items. In that time, I will be unavailable." His eyes glowed in a brighter yellow orange as he faced the group. "That means if you get into a kerfuffle and need to leg it, you'll be on your own."
Everyone nodded back. Satisfied that they understood his warning, Syllucraff dipped his forcola back in the Styx and his gondola began to depart. Silently and swiftly, he drifted away on the Styx until he disappeared beyond the horizon. The party turned to regard the cliff that was now in front of them.
The cliff facing before the group was a pale ivory color, like dried bones. It stretched far up from the little patch of shore and it's top was barley visible to the party. Dido quickly retrieved the rope of climbing from her gear and activate it with it's command word. The rope straightened out and each of the party members, save Tidal, secured themselves to the rope. Once they were ready, Tidal took the front of the rope and guided it up as he used his magical slippers of spider climb to walk up the side of the cliff as he'd done before. The odd sensation of walking vertical quickly passed for Tidal as he began his trek up the cliff face.
The climb itself was rather uneventful. It took a little more than 20 minutes to fully make the accent. Once the party reached the top, they all disconnected themselves from the rope and took in their new landscape. They were greeted by the view of a vast and ghastly wasteland. There was little in the way of topographical features. The ground was cracked and scarred. It had a dusty pale beige ting to it. In the distance they could see a tall and jagged mountain range. The range extended from either end to close off the wasteland like a natural boarder.
Between them and the mountain range was a set of hoodoos. There were twelve in total, in roughly two rows of six each. Each was a similar pale color as the cliffs along the Styx. The hoodoos were also fairly smooth looking with slight curves to their form and thinning out as you went from their base to their top. They each curved towards the middle between the two rows like a large beasts teeth.
Just past the hoodoos was a hill, or maybe a dome of some sort. The hill was roughly centered between the two rows of hoodoos but just past where they ended. It looked to be made of the same material as the two rows of hoodoos.
Erupting between the bases of the hoodoos was some sort of forest. The trees all looked like long dark vines striking out in many different directions. A sense of wild and untamed wilderness exuded from vegetation. If one was to squint hard enough, it might have appeared like the forest was a patch of hair or fur.
If was even possible, the air here in Malbolge was even hotter than the air in Maladomini. A fact that became evident to the group after standing at the top of the cliff having left the relatively cooler air flowing along the Styx. Unlike Maladomini, there was no cloud cover above them here. The sky was clear with it's bright blood red hues. Similarly to Maladomini however, there was no distinct source of light in the sky. The brightness of the sky was evenly dispersed across it's surface.
"Well, I guess we should head towards the forest?" grunted Tidal as he shrugged his shoulders.
Flewid took the opportunity to head over to Dido as the group readied to start moving out.
"May I see the journal please?" Flewid asked as he extended his green hand towards her.
Dido rummaged in her gear for a moment before handing over the leather bound journal to Flewid. Flewid thumbed through the pages looking for Hupperdink's entry on Malbolge. Once he found it, Flewid did a quick speed read of the entries.
"Anything of use?" inquired Dido, a little impatiently. The heat was beginning to bother her.
"There are a couple of useful points here." Flewid stated. "First, the lord of this layer is named Glasya. She apparently resembles a succubus. She's also the daughter of Asmodeus and is rather conniving."
Looking up from the journal and pointing towards the hoodoos, the forest, and the hill, Flewid continued.
"If I had to guess, that mound past the hoodoos is Ossiea. That is Glasya's fortress and the social hub of this layer. Apparently, she killed the previous lord, a devil named Malgarde, and made their skull into Ossiea."
"Anything about the forest?" grunted Tidal, also growing impatient. Not due to the heat, but because things were too calm for him.
Flewid thumbed over to another page before answering Tidal's question.
"It's called The Hair Forest. Apparently it's the remains of Malgarde's hair. It's likely a place where Glasya would hide any of her treasures and it's crawling with devils. It also rearranges itself roughly once a day."
"So Ossiea is where we need to head if we are to find this Jahrl." Dido stated.
The group nodded in agreement.
"Then let's get a move on." Tidal gleefully said as he turned and started making his way to the forest.
Flewid handed the journal back to Dido and they began to head out towards Ossiea. The group prepared to steel themselves for what would await them in the forest on their way to Ossiea.
***
The trek to the edge of the forest had been grueling. The heat was oppressive and unrelenting. The march had been akin to crossing a sun soaked desert. There had been no respite from the featureless glow of the sky. The group had remained ever vigilant as they travelled, but hadn't spied a single creature, alive or otherwise.
The Hair Forest offered the allure of a possible reprieve from the heat. It's tall stalks were the only change in scenery as they traveled over the wasteland. As they approached the border of the forest, the bramble nature became more apparent. Stalks breached the ground at many different angles. Some rose straight upwards, while others lazily snaked along the ground. Many of the stalks were tangled together with one another.
There was very little difference between the composition of the stalks. Each was several feet wide and black like polished obsidian. Most of the stalks were several meters long. For the ones that reached towards the sky, they were taller than any of the members of the party. The ones that lay along the ground easily disappeared into the thick of the bush. Despite the lack of wind, or even a subtle breeze, the stalks seemed to gently sway.
"Are they alive?" Tidal inquired in his gruff tone, nodding towards the nearest stalk.
"I guess all plants are alive." replied Flewid. "Many druids are know to commune with nature."
Tidal grunted, unsatisfied with the answer and stomped over to a near by stalk that was laying across the ground. Unsheathing his hellfire axe from his back, Tidal gripped it's hilt and swung it's blade. Bringing it's red glowing blade down over the stalk, he split it like it was a hair. The severed stalk wreathed on the ground at Tidal's feet.
Tidal barely had time to look down at the severed wiggling stalk as a separate stalk jutted out from the brambles of the forest and struck him in the shoulder. Digging his axe into the ground, Tidal prevented himself from being sent spiraling to the ground. The force of the hit also made him take a knee. Recovering quickly, he brought his axe up into a defensive position. Tracking the aggressive stalk's movements, Tidal was ready for the second strike. As the plant made it's next strike, Tidal brought his axe into it's path, splitting the vine in half. With a quick spin to reposition, he chopped off the split end form the stalk and it too feel to the ground wiggling violently.
Tidal paused for a moment to see if the forest would continue with it's retaliation. After a moment however, no further stalks snap out at him. Satisfied that there was no longer any immediate danger, Tidal bent down to examine the two wiggling vines. He moved them around with the side of his axe. To Tidal, they just looked like large strands of dark hair.
Rachel strode up beside him and began to cast a spell. Her hands began to glow a soft pale moonlit color. Muttering something that Tidal couldn't understand, Rachel finished her spell by pushing a small ball of light outwards at the two small stalks. As the light enveloped them, little blue and red flowers quickly grew and blossomed along their surface. The wiggling slowed a little, but did not stop.
"It would seem," Rachel started, getting back to her feet, "that the forest is only hostile if one is hostile towards it."
"Or I just asserted my dominance over these weeds and it now recognizes my superiority!" rebutted Tidal, chuckling to himself.
The rest of the group drew in closer and they began to fall into their marching order. Dido took the lead, leveraging her survival skills. Rachel, Flewid, then Tidal went next. Taking up the rear guard was Caravaggio.
Car kept a close eye on their surroundings, which was made all the more difficult by how dense the bush was. It was challenging to make out anything beyond a handful of feet. The distant forest just blurred together making an impenetrable wall of vines and stalks. The forest also offered no respite from the heat. Some of the party members wondered if it was in fact hotter under the canopy of the brush than out in the wasteland.
As an hour of traversing the woods past, other subtleties became more apparent. One was the lack of any noise. The was no wind rustling the stalks, no birds or creatures chirping or chittering. Even their own ambient noise from their movement felt dulled. The ground had grown quite flaky as they traveled deeper into the woods. The pale beige of the wastelands began to be replaced with even paler shades as they progressed deeper. The ground almost felt like a ghostly white, like that of a dead corpse.
Caravaggio's furry pointed ears suddenly perked up. He heard the faintest of noises from somewhere behind him. Keeping himself from looking in the direction of the noise, Car focused intently on the noise. It was very soft, like footsteps made on pillows. He could also tell that it was drawing closer to them.
Caravaggio made a light tap and Tidal's shoulder and whispered quietly.
"We are being followed. Let it draw closer before we strike."
Tidal nodded, the hint of a smile creeping onto his face before he passed the message along to the rest of the group.
After a few more paces forwards, Car could now tell the noise was extremely close. A shadow darted quickly along his left flank, of which he caught a glimpse. Then along the right flank, Car looked over just in time to make out a figure passing between the stalks. It was a short devil. It looked similar to a satyr, but with more devilish features. Long braided cords of hair ran down along it's back. Some of the cords were coiled in it's hands like rope, ready to lasso a target.
Car stopped the group.
"Let me see if I can reason with them first." Car said softly.
Almost everyone's hands in the group began to shift towards their weapons, but they didn't draw any of them. Car took a few steps to the side to move out of the line formation they had been traveling in. Turning his head to where he believed one of the devils to be, he began to speak in a strange language the group had not yet heard from him before.
"Wy wyy haf. Szizy hafr ulzylz." grunted Caravaggio in a deep guttural tone. The words felt so alien to the rest of the group.
Silence hung in the air as he awaited a response. Car could sense that what ever was out there had taken notice.
Tidal chuckled under his breath before whispering to the group.
"I hope you didn't insult their mother!" jested Tidal.
Car's head snapped towards Tidal, as his eyes narrowed.
"I told them we could see them and asked them to state their inten-" started Car in a hushed tone just before he was interrupted. He found himself bound in a dark cord that wrapped around him from head to toe.
Caravaggio's eyes followed the cord that lead away from him and into the brush. At the other end, holding the cord in both hands was a small satyr looking devil. It's hooved feet were dug into the ground and a hint of a smile curled up from the corner of it's mouth. The fight was on.
Comments
Post a Comment