Post by Char-Vell on Jun 4, 2018 20:59:42 GMT -5
“They seem to balk at the torchlight.” observed Bault. Verily, the shaggy horrors seemed ill disposed to come near the flaming brands, shuffling back and forth and shielding their bulbous orbs with their hairy limbs.
“Aye, but it won’t be long till the figure out to go around and attack us from the rear.” quoth Mualla grimly, “We must find an escape route or fight the whole horde. I’m guessing there’s about ten or twelve of the things.”
“Watch them, I have an idea.” Bault drew the two unlit torches from his girdle and lit them, propping them against the dais. He then drew from his pouch a black cylinder roughly the size of a man’s fist.
While he tinkered, one of the creatures, braver than its fellows, lunged past the torches. Mualla was upon it in a heartbeat. Agilely avoiding its flailing claws, she neatly sliced off its head. The body fell and lay motionless, but the severed head continued to grimace and work its toothy jaws.
“Beheading stops them cold.” she said, “but that’s a shrewd cut to deal in the press of battle. How goes your idea?”
Bault stood and handed Mualla a lit torch. “Listen, if the memories of this place Cortez shared with us are correct, there should be another door behind this dais. When I tell you we will run for it. Lash out with sword and torch at anything that seeks to bar you.”
Mualla grunted in assent. Bault held the torch to one end of the black cylinder. It ignited in a shower of sparks and the illusionist hurled into the midst of the shaggy horrors. As it struck the floor there was a fountain of flame, sparks, and acrid smoke. A thick oily black tendril emerged from the cylinder looking for all the world like an ebon serpent. The hairy fiends shrieked and scattered.
“Run for it!” cried Bault and the pair sprinted around the dais with its hellish portal. Sure enough, there was another set of double doors on the far wall. The sped through and sought to slam the doors shut behind them, but one of the nightmare abominations managed to close with them thrust it’s body between the closing doors. Flailing and biting. Mualla raised her scimitar to strike, but cried out as the things talon’s raked the right side of her body from armpit to knee. Cursing, Bault thrust his torch into the things gaping mouth. To his surprise the fiends head burst into flame as though it were made of dry straw. It howled and screeched, but still strove to force it’s way in, more of its kind could be seen approaching from the dimness.
“Let it in!” shrieked Mualla. “Close the door behind it while I kill it!”
Bault moved aside and the burning monstrosity surged into the room. As soon as it was clear Bault slammed the door shut and thrust his falchion thru the metal door handles, wedging them shut. A heartbeat later he felt the impact of the hellish throng as they assailed the doors.
He turned to see Mualla facing down the smoldering creature, whose aspect was even more hideous now that its fur had been burnt away. Smoke poured from its charred mouth and it croaked obscenely.
The thing’s claws had ripped away the barbarian’s scanty garments, leaving her naked save for a coating of her own blood. Her wickedly pointed teeth were bared and her golden eyes were wild with pain and bloodlust. To Bault’s eyes she had transformed into some mythic, savage war-goddess.
Invoking Dread Yig, she attacked. The monster would draw no more Ifornean blood this day. Mualla lopped of its taloned hands one at a time as the lashed out at her, then, swinging her scimitar with both hands, she split the foul thing’s head to its chest. She left the blade in the thing’s body as it fell, and stood panting, swaying unsteadily. Bault ran to her side.
“Mualla! Sit! Your wound…”
She waved a hand at him dismissively, then probed her side with her fingers, wincing as the gauged the severity of her hurts. “It’s not a mortal wound.” she said, unwinding the scarlet turban from her head. “It’s quite shallow, hurts like hell though. Give me your shirt.”
Bault stripped off the billowing purple garment and handed it to her. She looked over his bare chest and limbs and pursed her lips, clucking approvingly. “The austere lifestyle of a wandering adventurer agrees with you, Bault, you are becoming impressively thewed. Go and look around this room, while I bind my wounds and hide my nakedness, ere it drives you to distraction.”
Bault pointed to the crumpled mass on the floor. "That thing’s talons…they may be envenomed or something.”
“Sounds as though you are volunteering to clean my wounds later, sweetmeat! I accept. Now go. We must be quit of this room ere those things beat the door down.”
Bault grudgingly complied. Holding aloft the torch and moving deeper into the chamber he found it empty save for a circle of metal cylinders, twelve in number. Each was twice the height of the man and had the girth of a wagon wheel great pipes sprang from the tops of them and disappeared into the ceiling. At roughly eye level on each cylinder was a small window, above each window was a plaque inscribed with hieroglyphs. Bault peered into one.
“Itek and Visking!” he swore. Inside was a grinning skull, attached to a skeleton clad in a silvery garment.
Mualla sauntered up next to him. She had used strips of her turban to bind the deeper gashes she’d suffered, and then wound the rest about her breasts. Bault’s shirt she had twisted about her loins. Her curly ebon mane framed her face in wild disarray; Bault decided the look was very appealing.
“What have you found?” she enquired. “We mustn’t dawdle; those things still worry away at the door.”
“I’m not sure; I think it’s a tomb. These cylinders hold dead men.”
Mualla pointed at one on the opposite side of the circle. “There’s a glow coming from that one.”
There was indeed a faint glow coming from inside this particular cylinder. Peering inside, they saw a body suspended in a green liquid, all was covered by a silvery body stocking, save the face. It was a stern, hawk like countenance, with a high forehead and brows that spoke of great, cold, dispassionate intellect. Bault examined the plaque above the window, it bore the hieroglyphs:
Calling upon his imperfect knowledge of the tongues of the Ancients, Bault attempted to enunciate the words. “Salk..ind..oh…uhwen..”
“Salk-Ouendoo!” Mualla uttered, finishing the translation for him. “Tis the wizard himself! Slumbering in his casket in un-death! Open it and we’ll lop off his head!”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Mualla. I…”
There was a rending screech from the door. Mualla raced over and saw the doors buckling inward, hairy taloned fingers reached through the widening gap.
“Behold! They seek to come to their master’s aid!” Mualla raced back to Bault’s side. “We must open this and slay him!”
Bault cast about, looking for a way to open the casket. No seam or lock presented itself. He did however find a peculiar implement of metal, as long as his forearm with a close octagonal ring on one end and a crescent on the other. Finding it sufficiently hefty he assailed the window behind which the ancient sorcerer slumbered. After a few blows, cracks appeared in the glass.
“Hurry!” exhorted Mualla. “The door is giving way!”
Bault hammered away at the window with increasing savagery. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. He expected at any moment the dead necromancer’s eyes would snap open and…
Mualla paced like a caged lioness, eyeing the rapidly increasing gap in the doors and twirling her scimitar. Soon…
Bault struck the window with all the force he could muster. There was a sharp report, and the window shattered, busting outward with a fountain of reeking green gelatinous pulp. Bault recoiled at the stench, gagging, his eyes burning. As the tank drained he could still make out the face of Salk-Ouendoo. It dissolved. Flesh melting away to bone, bone melting away to repellent sludge.
The pounding at the door ceased. The hairy limbs that had been clawing and worrying at the door now hung slack. Mualla cautiously approached and looked upon the creatures that now slumped motionless at the door. One seemed to regard her with its pale, dead eyes. Something occurred to the warrior maid of Iforne’.
“Go Away!”
As one the hairy beasts rose, and shambled away into the shadows.
Mualla shuddered and rejoined Bault. He had moved away from the stinking puddle of yellow-green sludge that had gathered at the base of Salk-Ouendoo’s casket. He stood regarding it thoughtfully, stroking his chin.
“Those things obeyed me when I bid them leave. I think with the wizard dead, they will do our bidding, or at least not molest us further.”
Bault shook his head. “I don’t think Salk-Ouendoo was alive, at least not in a way we’d call life. His body…dissolved once it was exposed to the outside air. He was long dead, but perhaps there was some remnant of him, somehow trapped in this machinery. Some portion of his will survived and gave purpose to those creatures.”
“And when his body was destroyed. It broke the spell?”
“I suppose. It all sounds so silly when I speak my thoughts aloud. I must discuss this with Cortez, perhaps he will have some insight.”
Mualla chuckled. “Aye, nothing like a discussion with a talking bear to make things seem less silly! What now? I’m sure you wish to rummage through all these ancient trinkets, but I would be quit of these hellish catacombs! Further, I would see them destroyed or sealed forever! That damned mirror.”
Bault nodded. “Aye, the mirror…”
“Do not think to sneak back there and muck about with it! Swear to me now that you will not!”
Bault sighed and rubbed his face with is palms, then gazed at the floor for a few heartbeats. “I so swear Mualla. Slay me should I break my oath.”
Taken aback by the sincerity in the illusionist's voice when he uttered the oath, Mualla scowled for a moment and fingered the edge of her scimitar, it was notched and in need of attention. She went to Bault and seized him by his russet whiskers, smiling with laughter in her golden eyes.
“See that it doesn’t come to that, sweetmeat! Now, let us return to the comfort of the house of poor, murdered Simbish! You may confer with Cortez while you tend to my hurts, and I will ease my pain... and my nerves with a great bowl of that delightful purple wine!”