# Vitis Chronicles: The Rise of the Illithid (Last Updated: 6-29-03)



## Phasmus (Jun 29, 2003)

Scene: All is dark. The only sound is that of a string section playing an ominous chord... A woman's voice speaks; cultured, mellifluous...and audibly afraid.

_The dreams started some time ago. Sometimes I see things that have happened..._

Images begin rising from the darkness, wavering around the edges as though viewed in a calm pool of water.

Gloomy underground tunnels and caverns...full of blank-eyed creatures both human and otherwise. A tall, thin, monstrous thing glides past, mauve tentacles waving with satisfaction as it leads a pair of umber hulks past. They bump into whoever's eyes we're looking through as they pass, knocking the field of view around to face a decorative shield on the wall. Reflected there is a young woman's face, haggard and thin, but still pretty...despite the blank, mindless stare in her striking silver eyes...

The image shimmers, vanishes, is replaced...

Another illithid is standing, its arms protectively curled around itself as ghostly white humanoids circle it, tearing at it with their ethereal arms, burning it with their hate...

_Sometimes I dream of where we've been. What we've accomplished. Who we've saved._

A wizard stands over a stone table, with a human monk lying unconscious on it. With a wave of his hand and some spoken words...the human form begins melting, shifting...becoming something else. Something unspeakable.

A horde of antlike _things_ comes galloping out of the underbrush, the sound of their feet like a hideous, bloodthirsty howl. There is a place of sanctuary ahead...a tree...but the gnashing mandibles draw ever nearer, and the tree stays stubbornly, maddeningly, on the horizon...

A wooden door on some kind of huge caravan wagon. It opens, revealing a well-stocked study within. Books and loose scrolls and rolls of parchment litter the air. Candles give the place a jovial, warm glow. Sitting behind the well crafted wooden desk is...a monstrosity made of metal. A hulking, armored form with a gratelike faceplate that completely covers whatever is beneath it. When it speaks, it is a dischordant cacophony of a dozen voices speaking, moaning, screaming in unison, "Welcome."

A grotesquely decayed humanoid body, feasting on what appears to be a young boy's corpse. It looks up, grins, and says, "Don't worry, plenty left for all!"

A terrible ghostly spectre made of shadow and hate, with burning red eyes. It swoops down, shrieking, only to be deflected by the swipe of a dagger who's dark blade seems to ooze malice. From out of that blade a black smoky form begins to issue...

_Sometimes of those we've failed._

A translucent elven woman with hate-filled eyes, hovering over a snow-covered rocky landscape littered with wooden remains, opens her mouth to an inhuman width, and begins to scream...and the sound of it peels flesh from bones, rips souls from bodies...and the world begins to go black...

An illithid rears out of the darkness, and lunges forward, tentacles writhing eagerly, as dark lumbering shapes around it close in.

An elf, chained to a stone wall, begins sobbing and crying in terror as the blue tattoos that cover her skin flicker and turn red...and screams and roars begin emanating from outside the cell door.

A man that seems to be made of slick, liquid oil dashes madly down a cavern tunnel, where the flaming purple walls writhe and convulse around him. He is incanting madly, reaching out...and a vast maw is pursuing close behind...

An obscenity with a giant eagle's body, and a twisted parody of a stag's head launches itself upward out of an elven home amidst a great forest...and there is a woman's scream as its carnivorous teeth find flesh.

_Every night, they come. Every night, they haunt my sleep._

An elf man, youthful in appearance, but with gravity that can come only with centuries, holds up a crystalline stone. It flares with light, and projects something into his eyes. His aquiline features pale, and the stone clatters to the table from his nerveless fingers. The wire crown around his forehead glitters as he rises and glares balefully down, ready to pronounce his judgement...

A black ship of incredible size powers through waves nearly as high as it is on a storm-tossed ocean. Its mast flies a pirate's banner, and from its deck leap five figures...into the churning, pitch dark seas.

All goes black...until a light flares. And revealed in that magical blue-white glare is a ghastly pale-white fish the size of a small whale. Four tentacles writhe around a clacking beaklike mouth. The light goes out.

A gigantic tsunami of bones sweeps over a forest, grinding and consuming all in its path.

A looming iron golem bends over, striking at something with a spiked metal fist.

_But the worst ones...the ones I hate most..._

A demon, wreathed in flames and bearing a sword made of the same, screams in agony and terror as wraithlike tentacles spring out of the ground and envelop it.

An illithid steps out of the shadows in a darkened alley, surprising a red-haired elf of incredible beauty. She cries out and leaps forward, dealing it a vicious blow with her rapier. But it raises one mauve hand, calling forth green and black scintillating energies. The elf gasps in terror and tries to jump away...but too slow. Too slow. Long fingered, slimy digits grasp her shoulder firmly. The sickly lights spread over her body...and she screams...and vanishes.

Five people stand in a room with a slack-jawed elf. The elf is chanting in a voice like thunder, and the room's walls are covered in faintly glowing arcane sigils. Tiny, insectile things are scurrying from out of the elf's mouth around his face as he incants. The spell grows...reaches its climax...and the walls fade to transparency, revealing innumerable writhing, squirming jet black worms...as though the room was merely a cubicle floating in a sea of leeches.

An illithid lies lifelessly on the ground. On the back of its head are two straight scars making an X. A foot cautiously reaches out and pushes it over...there's a gasp of horror. Its hands are tied with purplish tentacles. Its face has only four bleeding stubs around its maw.

The last one fades away.

_...are the ones that show me what might still be coming._

The view zooms back, exposing a dark orb in a dark sky. There is a corona off to one side, as though the sun were in a state of eclipse. The surface of the orb is slightly glossy...as if covered with ice. As it turns, we see that this globe is in fact the world itself. The northern continent has a lake that looks horribly like an eye...and from farther south, things begin rising out of the frozen obsidian seas. Great towers, or something like it. Each one must be miles across, and swiftly growing upwards, away from the surface. We continue to pull back, and abruptly the awful truth can be seen.

The 'towers' are in fact tentacles...four of them. They begin to undulate loathsomely in space around a crater that opens in the center of them, deepening into a mouthlike cavern. The 'eye' glazes over, becoming the featureless white of an illithid's.

There's a gasp of horror, and the scene shifts abruptly to a woman sitting up straight in bed, though we cannot see her features clearly. The view pans in closer, coming around towards the table. The woman reaches for a lamp at her bedside with a shaking hand. The view comes in close on the lamp.

_In this way, I suppose, being awake is no different than being asleep._

The lamp lights. We catch a glimpse of long, slightly curved claws on the fingertips as they're pulled away. The view starts pulling back.

_It's that image that drives me. No matter what might get in my way. It gives me the imperative that keeps me going, though all hope seems lost._

Finally we see her face. It is clearly the same woman as from the very first image; the image of the illithid slave woman. She is no longer raddled by hunger and mistreatment, but her face is eerily changed. It seems to be made of flexible, glittering gold, and there are curious ridges above her eyes, circling around her temples. Her eyes are still silver, but are nothing like human now. They are chrome orbs, marred by vertical oval slashes, like a cat's pupils. Her lips peel back from her mouth in a snarl, and it's like looking at a shark's grin.

_I will not let that dream come to pass._

The light goes out...though the unsettling image of those reptilian eyes lingers in the darkness for a moment longer.

---

The Chronicler has returned. 

The story continues. 

Doom awaits.

*Vitis Chronicles: The Rise of the Illithid*

Previously in Vitis


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## The Forsaken One (Jun 29, 2003)

Hurmz... looks very promising. You got my attention! (The Formian feature pulled me over )


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## Shayuri (Jun 30, 2003)

*Update, with quick summary!*

For those who haven't read the previous thread (linked in the first post of this thread), here's a quick summary to get you up to date.

Our adventures begin with three people who had been enslaved by mind flayers when they ambushed the surface world en masse, and conquered huge swaths of it. Shayuri, a human sorceress, Piklum, a halfling rogue, and Shar, a human cleric of a goddess of chaos. During an illithid expedition to investigate unusual findings in a forest, we were all killed and eaten by our masters.

The guardians of the place raised us as ghosts and charged us to slay the last remaining illithid, who had escaped their wrath, before it could rejoin its fellows and inform them of what had happened...and what was being guarded. Time was of the essence, since the Dimensional Anchor that the guardian had placed on it would not last much longer.

We did as instructed, and barely made it back to the barrow in time to be truly resurrected before our spirits dissipated from the fulfilment of our ghostly fetter. The guardian, an elven _baelnorn_ lich then charged us with another task. Convey a message to the current leader of the elves on this continent...instructing him to help in any way he can in the struggle against the mind flayers.

Along the way to fulfill this quest we met a strange elven ranger bearing uncanny magical tattoos, and her monk companion...also refugees from enslavement...named Semaki and Quadim, and a man at arms from the nation of Caron, bearing a rune-encrusted sword and whom we saved from a hunter killer construct. His name is Mark.

With side quests that included helping free a hatchling gold dragon from illithid capture, we finally met with an enclave of human beings hidden underground by a mage named Zoyster. Despite the pains inflicted by him to ensure we were not thrall spies, we learned important news. Such as that Quadim was in fact a doppelganger that believed it was a human monk. At his behest, we set forth to lead a scout party of thralls astray...and during this time we lost Piklum, fought what appeared to be a variety of insects that had once been human beings, and had Shar leave the party when her goddess called her. After a good deal of arguing about Zoyster's methods we learned Piklum had been found by a caravan of the Spineless Order of Mages, and set off to recover him.

For the full story, I suggest reading the previous thread. The link is in my sig as well as in the opening post. We decided to start a new thread due to the long MIA period I had, in which the original SH went unupdated. And also because we thought the new title was better. 

And now, on with the show.

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It was the night after they'd left the Resistance's enclave behind. Semaki was on guard while the others slept. Most of the others at least.

Shayuri was awake, staring at the elf. More precisely, at the strange blue tattoos, as they merged and shifted over Semaki's skin. Several times now they'd briefly formed symbols in the arcane tongue, and Shayuri was mesmerised. Something was buzzing in the back of her skull, like a trapped moth battering against glass walls. It wasn't just pretty pictures on Semaki. She was suspecting more and more that the tattoos were actually some kind of spell formula.

"You should go to sleep," Semaki said quietly without turning around. "Your turn at watch is after mine."

Embarrassed at having been caught, Shayuri sat up a bit, propping herself on an elbow. "Can I ask you a question?" she asked.

Semaki was silent a beat longer than normal for that sort of question, perhaps hearing something more than simple curiosity in the sorceress' voice. "What sort of question?" she cautiously returned.

"About your tattoos."

Another pause. "Ask."

"What are they for?"

Semaki turned to look back at Shayuri. Her face betrayed nothing. "A ritual form of decora..."

Shayuri shook her head and sat up completely. "No, no, I know better than that." Her strange eyes flicked to the sleeping forms of the others, then back to Semaki. "Usually I can't understand them, but I've seen them form sigils in the high arcane. Not enough to figure out what they do, but enough to see that they do _something_." She scooted forward, towards Semaki. "I need to know. Please."

"Aye.  You remind me of my father's students.  Always so eager to know everything, to unravel every mystery..."  Semaki trailed off.  She didn't sound bitter or angry, just...wistful.

Shayuri drew herself into a sitting position. "Well, I _am_ a spellweaver," she noted with a wry smile. "Warriors practice their weapons and shields, priests contemplate their gods...we unravel the mysteries of worlds, natural and otherwise." She brushed her hair back. "Besides, I'm trained to follow my intuition, and it's been bothering me about those tattoos for awhile now."

"Some fights should not be fought, some Gods should not be contemplated, and some mysteries should remain mysteries."  Semaki answered dryly.  "Your instincts are sound enough, if they tell you to be wary of these markings."

"No no, not wary," Shayuri quickly demurred, afraid she'd offended the elf. "Just...bothering me. It's as if there's a pattern to it all that I can almost grasp...but...not quite." She frowned, trying to think of another way to put it. "Or, think of it as if your tattoos spelled a name, a name I know. And looking at them I can see enough to realize I know that name...but not quite enough to actually know what the name is."

Semaki frowned as well, swallowed, and looked away before answering.  "The symbols do spell a name.  A name which should not be spoken, and a name many would do well to forget if ever they knew it."  As she spoke the tattoos swirled into angry stabbing lines, and then back into their symmetrical and circular patterns.

"They react...to your mood," Shayuri said to herself out loud. "But that isn't what they're for..." She looked at Semaki for a moment, then asked, "Perhaps...sometime...would you let me see more of them?"

Semaki looked sadly at Shayuri.  "The less you know of them, the better.  You have suffered enough as it is, child.  I would not wish to involve you in...in my tale.  Those it has touched..." she trailed off again, and sighed. Suddenly, despite her elven youth, she looked and sounded very old. "They are a warding.  And a promise.  My father's parting gift to me."  She said the words almost as if she'd rehearsed them.

"A warding," Shayuri echoed, "Yes! You can almost see it...only...I don't think it's focused right." Her finger starts to move as of it's own accord, as her lips soundlessly move. It traces a pattern in the dust before her. "_Anaka edritch_ and _ie'alaya_ in its inverse term. A bane to evil," she whispers absently, half in a trance.

Semaki watched Shayuri anxiously as the sorceror scrawled in the dust.  "You already know more than you should Shayuri.  Please, for your own sake...delve no deeper, speak not the name."

"I don't know any name," Shayuri replied, frowning, "But...I can see some of what this is meant to do. Only a part though." Her gleaming silver eyes locked on Semaki's, eerily reminiscent of the moon above. "I...think I can do something with this, Semaki. Take these pieces of the spell, and make them work. But, it's not complete. I need to see the rest."

Semaki looked uncomfortably towards the camp where Quadim and Mark ostensibly lay sleeping.  She turned back to Shayuri, her own eyes like an eclipse, darker than darkness itself.  "I confess...I do not know the entirety of my father's design, nor the fullness of his purpose.  Perhaps it is, as you say, incomplete...but I dread its activation.  I do not know what lies beneath my skin.  I do not care to know."

"Semaki...this thing in your skin...it's well beyond me," Shayuri said earnestly, but her eyes were shining excitedly, "But I think I can understand how to use some of the pieces to do other things." She looked down at the pattern she drew in the dirt, and an expression of surprise briefly crossed her face. "I don't want to activate anything. I just need to see a little bit more about how to put these patterns together, and make them work."

A momentary confused expression passed over the elf's face.  "What use would you have for them?  My father's design was meant for me alone.  I doubt it could serve a purpose for any other."  Dropping her eyes towards the ground, she plucked listlessly at her bow string.

"No no, that's what I mean! It can be adapted. I'm not sure what all I can do with it, but...the technique..." For a moment Shayuri's eyes unfocused as she again regarded the symbols and runes. Her mouth moved silently for a moment before she again met Semaki's gaze. "The technique can be learned," she finished.

Semaki smiled a melancholy smile of understanding.  "Ah.  My father would have liked you.  You would have made a fine student."  She looked up from her bow-string plucking to regard Shayuri.

Semaki's mood finally pierced the veil of inspiration that had dropped over Shayuri's eyes. She looked at the elf anew. "I...I'm sorry. I wish I could have met him."

"Aye.  'Tis no fault of your own that you cannot."  Semaki quipped.  "So."  She glanced away again, contemplating the stars for a moment before turning back.  "You wish to see the whole of my father's canvas?"

"Well, when it's convenient," Shayuri responded, rubbing out the pattern in the dirt sheepishly. "I got a little carried away, I know. But I feel like I'm so...close to something."

Semaki sat a little straighter and considered her sleeping companions.  She then offered a small smile at Shayuri. Indulgently, in the way one might smile at a precocious child.  "Now is as fine a time as any...but I have one condition that you must first swear to honor."

 Shayuri raised an eyebrow. "What condition?"

"Simply this,"  Semaki replied.  "You are a student of magical arts. You know much, and may come to know more.  Within the runes and symbols my father's hand has left a name.  Do not seek to learn it...do not speak it, do not think of it." Her voice took on an unusually emphatic tone.

Shayuri 's mouth opened on autopilot to ask, "What's the name of?" but her brain frantically kicked in at the last moment and clamped it shut again. She licked her lips and nodded. "Very well," she said.

"You must promise me."  Semaki said severely, a little frown creasing the delicate features of her face.  "I must hear you promise."

"All right," Shayuri responded. "I will not speak, nor intentionally learn, whatever name is enciphered in your tattoos." She paused, then added, "Without your express permission." The sorceress hesitated, but at Semaki's stern expression completed it. "I promise." The two last words had an odd weight to them, seeming to clump heavily to the ground like old leather-bound books.

Semaki slowly stood.  "I have your word?"  She pressed doubtfully, even as she unfastened one of the shoulder straps on her armor.

Shayuri nodded. "Sworn and sealed." She touched her first two fingertips to her mouth, then held them up as if testing the wind.

"Very well..."  Semaki undid the strap as she peered down at Shayuri.  "I pray that you do not deceive me."  Reaching to her other shoulder she unsnapped the catch there, and peeled her armor off of her slender shoulders.  Turning slightly, she unfastened her belt and let the scabbard drop to the ground with a small thud, and pulled her sheer tunic over her head. Finally she turned back to Shayuri, standing naked, save only for her boots. These she removeed as well, at last completely naked in the soft glow of the moon.  Her body was smooth and, were it not for the tattoos, unblemished.  Her skin was purest white, and it seemed to glow under the silvery moonlight.  She seemed unabashed by her nudity, and allowed Shayuri to gaze over the markings that covered her chest, wound down her midriff and played across her hips and legs.

Under other circumstances, Shayuri might have felt a stab of insecurity at seeing Semaki's statuesque form revealed. But her eyes now saw only the tapestry for the markings that writhed and twisted like things alive. Though she could not read all the symbols, she saw now that they did indeed link together to form a shield of sorts. A very specific shield as well, she realized. Without thinking, Shayuri approached, eyes following the rivers of arcane words and icons, mouth again moving slightly without making a sound.

Semaki stood patiently while Shayuri inspected her.  At length she turned to reveal the maze of runes and symbols that cover her back.  They appeared as symmetrical patterns, forming images within the symbols themselves, and hinting at some larger whole.  In the very middle of her back, following the curve of her spine the draconic word for 'thorn' shone brightly.  A cold wind seemed to touch Shayuri as she read it.

"That's it," she muttered to herself. "That's the key there."

"What?  What is the key?"  Semaki asked, looking at Shayuri over her shoulder .

Shayuri went on, seemingly unaware of Semaki's words. "If you remove that..." her fingers touched Semaki between the shoulderblades, above the _thorns_ term, and glided sideways, following the magical equations in their looping arcs. "That's why it's so big..." she continued. "This could all be much simpler if it was...yes, but weaker too...it's meant to be targeted at just one thing, but..."

"Have you seen enough?"  Semaki inquired, a note of nervousness insinuating itself into her musical voice.

"In fact," Shayuri said, heedless, excitement kindling again, "I think you could substitute some high chant for these two bits...and that would make it even smaller. Wait." She dropped to her knees and started scribbling in the dirt with a finger. "I have to see this." She drew a looping diagram, eerily reminiscent of the tattoos, then stood up and stared down at it. "Not quite there yet." Her eyes went back to Semaki.

Semaki was standing resolutely still...but the tattoos covering her skin seemed to take on some of Shayuri's excitement.  They played about Semaki's skin, disturbing their patterns and forming others...though the central symbol, _thorn_ is never moved.  It seemed to Shayuri, that there was something hidden in the shifting of the pattern, as if another pattern lay beneath it...or perhaps the movements themselves hinted at some secret script.

Shayuri watched them for a long moment. It was eluding her; whatever 'it' was. The spell wouldn't work without a focus, something specific to act against. The terms for the object Semaki's version was targeted for were obscure...seemingly too vague to be of use. There was something there, she was sure, but how to cleave them from the formula when the true subject was hidden?

Suddenly the design on Semaki's back shifted once more, and in its shifting, spells out a name; an elvish name.

Lyceus Kellimar, though the two words were joined as one, and as the pattern swirled, they twisted to form the draconic symbol for demon, or 'other-worlder.'  The whole of the pattern, of which the name was but a part, was entwined with the ancient elvish rune for blood, though it followed close upon a sylvan symbol which Shayuri couldn't make out. The shifting pattern then dissolved back into its normal state of unrest, lancing across Semaki's back.

Shayuri gasped and poked Semaki hard just over a kidney, eyes burning with  feverish light. "I think I got it."

Semaki felt a wrench and craned her neck to look back. Shayuri shook her head abruptly and smiled up at Semaki. "I've seen enough for now, if you're cold. It may not be perfect, but I think I understand it enough to finish on my own."

Semaki simply nodded, and began dressing herself.  "I hope that your curiosity has been sated then."

Shayuri  nodded absently and squatted to begin a new set of sigils in the dirt. "For now," she said. "This...should...work." She drew a pair of concentric circles that contained the terms of the magic. They were superficially similar to the tattoos, though visibly simpler in content and structure.

"I should warn you Shayuri...my father..."  Semaki hesitated, "when he carved these runes onto my skin...it was his final act."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Shayuri replied, still with that preoccupied tone, "But this is orders of magnitude simpler. I could never do what he did...the higher level terms are way over my head. But when you boil it down, take out the all the Naming and Binding stuff, this is what powers it." She stood and moved her hand, describing a pattern in the air, and chanted in a sonorous, oddly resonant voice as she stared down at the symbols she'd drawn.  The air around her glittered unnaturally, and suddenly the dust billowed upward from her diagram, turning bright silver and describing looping, swirling symbols similar to those on Semaki's skin in the air all around Shayuri. Her incantation ceaseed, and the shining scrawl suddenly collapsed inward, plastering itself to Shayuri and glowing brilliant white...then fading out of sight.

Semaki bounded to her feet, looking shaken.  "You have...what have you done?"  She demanded anxiously, unsettled by the frighteningly familiar transformation.

"I...I'm not sure, exactly," Shayuri said, beaming. "But it worked!"

The elf swallowed, and put her hands to the sides of her head. "Those runes...the symbols...you copied them?  Say you did not..."

"Oh no, not like you think," Shayuri answered reassuringly. "This is just the bare essence of it. It's an abjuration dweomer; that much I can tell. Focused outward like this, I 'think' it should prevent physical contact with beings from other potentialities." She paused, reviewing the symbols on the ground. "It may also have some other effects. But it shouldn't last long in this form." The sorceress sighed. "A pity I can't do an extraplanar summons to try it out."

Semaki sagged with relief.  "Ah, yes...a pity that," she agreed unenthusiastically.  She closed her eyes a moment as the tattoos that bound her danced trails of bluish light over her skin, then looked at Shayuri with fatigue clearly showing in her face.  "Perhaps now would be a fine time to make my rest."

Shayuri nodded as she inspected herself. "Certainly. I'll probably be up for a while anyway. I'll take over the watch." The glowing symbols briefly reappeared on her skin...only to flicker and die away. Shayuri scowled. "Mmm. Very short lived. Have to work on that."

Silently, Semaki prowled towards a little outcropping of rocks, then hesitated for a moment and turned back.  "Shayuri...I, would ask that you not share what I have shown you with any other.  They...may not understand."  She looked significantly at Mark.

The dark-skinned sorceress looked up at Semaki, abruptly concerned. "First of all," she said firmly, "I would never do something like that. I realize how...personal this is for you. I'm deeply honored that you chose to share this with me. I would never betray that." She smiled. "I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of, either. I don't pretend to understand exactly what those tattoos are or do, but I know they represent a very powerful protection, and one of the noblest gestures of love I could ever hope to see."

Semaki returned the smile sadly and turned away quickly, before Shayuri could make out the emotion in her typically emotionless eyes. With a murmured, "My thanks...for your understanding." she laid herself down, curling against the back of a rock.

When Shayuri awoke Mark, she fell into an exhausted sleep almost immediately after...leaving the warrior to stare worriedly at the constellations of arcane diagrams and marks that clustered in the dirt around where the sorceress lay.

---

It was another two days of following the torn earth in the caravan's wake before the travelers caught up to their quarry.

As the ruts in the ground became noticibly fresher, they came to hear a distant rumbling noise. It sounded a bit like a stampede of cattle might, making both Semaki and Mark nervous. As they pressed on, the noise gradually became louder, closer. Still, they had caught no glimpse of what was making the noise before they got their first look at a mage of the Spineless Order.

He was walking at a brisk pace, looking around as he went. A rear guard, perhaps. When he looked over his shoulder and saw the group approaching, he whirled and produced a crossbow from under his volumnious cloak. A man in his mid-thirties, perhaps, wearing dark clothes and an unusually billowy grey cloak. His face had a peculiar greyish tinge, but was otherwise ordinary enough...if deeply suspicious in expression. "Ho there," he called in a sharp, carrying voice. "Who's there!"

Semaki moved automatically, too quickly to follow. In a blink her bow was in her hands, and an arrow was bending the string. Shayuri stepped forward, empty hands stretched out.

"We're here for Piklum. A halfling. We were told he was staying with you," the sorceress said quickly.

The Spineless surveyed them critically, scowling especially at Semaki. "Yes," he drawled, "We were expecting you some time ago. Put up your weapons, and follow me." He made no move to lower his own weapon though.

Semaki did not scowl, but her knuckles whitened where they gripped the arrowshaft. Mark called out, "Piklum is safe?"

The mage snorted. "He is safe enough. Are you going to put that bow away, or will we stand here chatting all day?"

Shayuri put a hand on Semaki's shoulder. The elf nodded slowly, and gently relaxed the arrow from the bow, slipping it into her quiver again. "I do not trust them," she murmured to Shayuri. "We should not linger here." The sorceress only nodded slightly, her smile at the Spineless never faltering.

After a pregnant pause, the mage lowered the crossbow and nodded. "Follow me."

Mark's mouth dropped open slightly, and he stayed where he was for a moment when the others fell into step. He'd caught a glimpse of something under the cloak...when the mage had turned so quickly. A jointed segment of...a tail? He shivered. _What did you get me into, Lord Zoyster?_ he inwardly lamented. The little chunk of stone circling his head sed. "C'mon, Laughing Boy," Xag urged. "We're gonna miss the freak show."

Mark sighed and followed.

And what a freak show it was.

It wasn't, Shayuri would reflect later, that the Spineless were inhuman. It wasn't even that they were in fact, largely human or humanoid but that those familiar shapes and features were warped so horribly. What made the Spineless so disquieting was the sense one got that they were _proud_ of their deformities. Shayuri had been trained by a pair of wizards, and knew very well that most workers of the arcane arts bore marks of their successes or failures. Magic could be unpredictable at times, even in the best of situations. One mage might have a mystic mark burned into his forehead. Another could sport oddly colored skin or eyes...Shayuri herself fit solidly into this category, though she had been born that way. These so-called 'wizard-marks' were typically minor, and carried as badges of honor. Generally, in the event of an accident that led to greater disfigurement, the wizard in question would get it fixed through magic or divine intervention. But not these Spineless...

In all shades and shapes they came...walking, hopping, some even flying on buzzing insectile wings, or levitating by magic. They kept pace with the wagons, chatting amiably with one another. Some sported slick coats of slime over knobbled skin. Others had even more exotic appearances. Exoskeletons were popular...many of them had noticible insect "themes" to their appearances. Here a man who had what looked like a crab shell affixed to his back gestured with a hand...revealing that his fingers had fused into two pincer-like structures. There a woman oozed by with a nod at the group's guide; at first she seemed to just be wearing an oddly fancy skirt, but on closer inspection, the frills that undulated over the ground turned out to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of incredibly thin, long legs...somehow operating in unison to bear their owner along. A boy darted past, his five eyes arranged into a rough semicirclar arc over his nose. A creature waddled past that looked precisely like a human-sized preying mantis...giving Shayuri and the others a nasty shock before they realized it wasn't like the monster they encountered before; it was speaking in earnest clicking tones to what looked like a man with the lower body of a squid, bearing himself along on floppy tentacles. And wherever the group of "normal" people went, eyestalks turned to follow them, compound lenses glittered suspiciously, and burbling, whispered conversations hushed.

The wagons themselves were simply enormous, each one drawn by a vast beetle-like creature that snuffled and snorted at the ground as they went. Chains were tied around their midsections, presumably to keep them from being able to spread the wings that were occasionaly visible under the bisected carapace that covered their backs in a graceful sweeping dome. As extraordinary as they were, they paled beside the people.

Mark was very pale, enduring the situation by focusing on the guide and ignoring anything else his eyes might be telling him. In contrast, Semaki was staring openly around, meeting their muted hostility unabashedly in kind. Quadim seemed distracted, staring piously at the ground...but his eyes flicked constantly, noting any threats, memorizing the face and form of anyone who stared peculiarly hard, or seemed unduly interested. The list was very long. For her part, Shayuri tried very hard not to stare, and even went so far as to bestow what she hoped were friendly smiles as she nodded at the baffling array of monstrosities that surrounded them. Mana gaped in unselfconscious awe, and was perhaps the only one that didn't draw many flat, unfriendly looks.

They were led to a particularly foreboding black-hued wagon at the fore of the group...large enough and heavy enough that two of the huge beetles were required to draw it. The guide hopped easily onto a set of stairs leading up the rear of it to a door. He climbed up, rapped three times sharply, and trotted back down.

"Macannderlia will see you now," he said in his subtly sneering voice. "My advice; take your friend and go. Times have been hard. Visitors aren't welcomed like they used to be."

Shayuri nodded, raising a finger to forestall Mark. "Thank you for your help, and your advice," she replied calmly.

The guide departed. The stairway was just large enough to hold everyone in the group in a straight line from the door to the last step. After some bickering about who should go first (Mark felt he should, in case there was a threat, Shayuri argued she should, since she was more capable of dealing with magical situations...finally Shayuri won, mainly because she began verbally speculating on what the leader of these people might look like), Shayuri hesitantly knocked on the door again, then opened it.

Warm orange light spilled out of the doorway into the deepening twilight. It came from a candleabra set into a magnificent desk that occupied the far side of a large room...though not nearly so large as the entire wagon. Shelves lined the walls, stuffed to overflowing with leatherbound books, and every open space stuffed with rolls of parchment in varying condition. In one corner a brass pedestal sported a large sphere with drawings on it that Shayuri immediately recognized as a map of the world. In the other, a telescope crafted from burnished steel lay on three metal legs, tilted almost vertical to save space. It was a room that so perfectly captured the essence of "mage's study," that Shayuri stepped instinctively inside, feeling completely at home with only a passing glance around. Then she took another look at what was seated behind the desk...and nearly knocked Mark off the stairs when she backed up.

It is not fair to say that a voice came from the figure seated at the desk. The noise it made was far more than that. Dozens of voices, layered thickly; a deep bass rumble, a girlish falsetto, a moan of anguish, a terrified shriek...all of these and more spoke in perfectly timed unison, pronouncing the word, "Welcome."

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To Be Continued


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## Baron Opal (Jul 12, 2003)

Looking forward to the next installment. The mind flayers (rhodrians in my milleu) have long been a fast favorite of mine. I am looking forward to the next installment.

Baron Opal


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## Look_a_Unicorn (Jul 4, 2006)

I know it's been ages since the last update, just wanted to say I enjoyed reading through the pre-cursor thread- and this one too. The writing style was great and the story- and characters- showed great promise for an entertaining story hour.

It's... death? Hiatus? is lamented


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