by Galen Wolf
After dinner, the NPCs announced they were going their own separate ways. I watched as the human woman Ursula stood and brushed down her red dress. She said she was going to the library, then disappeared through the dining room door.
Drugo the halfling wine merchant said he was going to the music room and off he went.
The arrogant elf Arcturus stood and told us he was going to bed.
The dwarf Thuan announced he was going to the conservatory.
Astral Bob glanced at me. "I'm guessing that now they're split up they might be more amenable to questions?"
"So, which one first?"
Elfhair said, "What about the elf, that Arcturus. I didn't like him."
I guess you weren't supposed to like him," I said. "But yes, that sounds like a reasonable suggestion, where did he say he was going?"
"He said he was going to bed."
I frowned. "Does that mean he won't be available for questioning? I feel a bit weird going into another dude's bedroom."
For the first time Astral Bob laughed. It seemed I'd amused him. "Let's go find the Elf," he said.
Elfhair shrugged. "I'm guessing the bedrooms will be upstairs..."
The three of us went to the main staircase and mounted the steps to the first floor. The whole house was decorated in the same old-fashioned dark wood/heavy furniture style. There were windows but they looked out onto the dark night. I could see the moon glowing in the sky through the glass. I shuddered despite myself. The whole place had an eerie feel.
The house was shaped like a playing card. On this floor, the bedrooms were arranged along a corridor that wound right round and came back on itself. We walked round the edge of the playing card shape and found a door that was open. Arcturus was sitting at the dressing table motionless as if waiting for us.
The room had a four-poster bed hung with heavy silk drapes in blue, with a yellow lily design repeated on them. Once again, the wood paneled walls were dark; I saw hideous faces in their patterns of knots and whorls. A painting of a ship in full sail on a stormy sea hung above the lit fireplace. There were ornaments like those in the drawing room. The Elf turned as we entered. "Can I help you?"
"We'd just like to ask a few more questions," I said.
"Yeah," Astral Bob said. "I think you got some secrets you need to spill."
The elf's eyes narrowed. He looked enraged. "If you take that tone, my man," he said, "I think you should leave now." He glanced meaningfully at the door.
Astral Bob looked like he was going to give the elf a mouthful, but I put my hand on Astral Bob's shoulder and said. "No, we're just curious about what happened to Lord Armboth. We're pretty worried about him and to be honest there's been a suggestion that there was foul play."
The elf looked away. "I don't know anything about that."
That signified to me that this line of questioning was a dead end.
Elfhair spoke, "I can see that you too are worried about Lord Armboth. I'm guessing that your trade with him is important to you."
The Elf seemed to be listening to her.
She continued. "We just want to help Lord Armboth, and we want to make sure that he gets better and that he can continue to do business with you as you hoped he would."
"To buy seashells..." I muttered.
The Elf flashed me a hostile glance. Elfhair turned and hissed. "Quiet, Barcud leave this to me." I didn't like her being upset with me, so I shut up.
Astral Bob turned and whispered, "Priests get skills within their class - the Influence skill set. Priest skills are bless, heal, influence, fencing, and – I forget the last one."
I watched Elfhair speaking to Arcturus and I could see from his face that she was winning him over. There must have been some kind of skill check because suddenly his face went blank and he said:
"In Six I Stand Around The Room,
Bring Me Low - Escape Your Doom."
I shook my head. "And what on earth does that mean?"
Elfhair turned. "It's a riddle."
"Yeah, I got that."
She narrowed her eyes. "It clearly means something important to the quest. Don't be so dense Barcud, or so sarcastic."
Seconds after the Elf spoke his riddle, there was a loud click and a panel opened in the wood at the back of the room.
"That's interesting," I said. "Shall we go explore?"
10
Riddles and Tunnels
All three of us stared at the tunnel door that had just clicked open.
Astral Bob nodded at Elfhair and he followed me towards the panel in the door. Cautiously I pulled it open. As far as I knew it could be trapped, but nothing exploded, no darts shot out to fill me with poison, no serrated saw dropped from the ceiling to carve me in half. I grinned at my companions. "Easy, see?"
Behind the door, a dry, stone passage beckoned. Dust coated the floor and it looked like no one had been there for quite a while. There were no windows and the light came from Glow Moss growing in streaks along the walls.
I said. "There are probably mobs down here. It's a kind of place that you would expect them, and of course traps."
"I wish we had Achilles with us", Elfhair said.
"The problem with that is he's level 20 and you'd lose 140% XP."
She shook her head in exasperation with me.
"Okay," said Astral Bob. "Let's go."
We'd walked a few paces into the tunnel when I heard the skittering of insects and saw a swarm of spiders emerging from holes in the walls. They were the size of footballs and scurried around on multiple legs. I could see their evil eye clusters and their sharp fangs. There was no room in this enclosed spaced for me to use my bow, so I drew my daggers.
Astral Bob pulled out a sword and Elfhair equipped herself with a mace and a shield and we laid around us. The spiders attacked like a black beady tide, and Elfhair got bitten more than once. She healed herself with the silvery glow of healing magic, but she was having to do that too frequently. Of course, these were level 10 monsters and she was only level 3, so she wasn't really up to facing them. I dragged her by her shoulder and pulled her beside me. My daggers went snicker snack as I punctured their round, ichor filled bodies. I stabbed and defended myself against the spiders. Some of the bites got through and they did around 6 Hp damage per bite. That wasn't too bad given the amount of health I had—135hp—but it was happening a lot. My health bar was reducing, slowly but surely, and I was around 78% full. Sweat beaded on my brow. When I got to around 60%, I'd eat a Hale Fruit. It was hard work, but we were definitely beating them. Astral Bob sipped a blue healing potion. Elfhair was concentrating on defending herself and bracing with her shield to take as little damage as possible, even so, every now and again she glowed as she healed herself.
The spiders kept biting me even though I was killing them. The swarm seemed endless. Their horrible chittering noise was the worst thing. I was about 62% health and I was about to reach into my herb pouch to pull out a healing Hale Fruit, when I felt the warm glow of a healing spell cast by Elfhair. I turned around and grinned. "Thanks."
She nodded. Not smiling. She was concentrating too much on the grim fight. "You're welcome."
After about five minutes, we had destroyed the spider swarm. Panting, wiping sweat from our brows, we advanced down the dark corridor me and Astral Bob abreast, weapons out and ready, Elfhair following behind us peering over the top of her shield.
We turned the corner and saw the mother of all the spiders. She was around the size of a rubbish skip and spherical. Her body was crimson black mottled with red and green veins and her legs were spindly and hairy, made of black keratin. Each leg ended in a vicious spike and her mouth was full of curving black spider fangs. She shuffled, gleaming black and threatening.
I sheathed my daggers and pulled out my Bow of Flame. I nocked three arrows to the bow and activated my Rapid Shot skill. All three arrows did good damage but she sure had a lot of HP. I used my Appraise skill and saw that the damage I'd done had taken her down o
nly around 2%. Elfhair was going forward past us to smash the spider with her mace but I stopped her and held the back.
"Clerics at the back," I said. "You're only a level 3. She'll kill you. I'd rather have you behind my back healing me than having to save your ass in front of me."
I had no idea what the Scryer skill set was. I'd seen Astral Bob using a sword and I guessed that he would defend himself with it, but instead, he pulled out a doll from his inventory. The doll was spindly and black and looked like a wooden marionette, except it had no strings. It stood jerkily and advanced like Bill and Ben towards the huge spider. The spider rushed at us, clicking its mandibles, its hair legs rasping dryly. I backed off firing more arrows and Elfhair stumbled behind me, while Astral Bob ducked into a recess and let his marionette attack the thing. It appeared the wooden doll could inflict magic damage, because each time its flappy wooden hands struck the spider there were blue sparks. The spider's health bar went down. I wondered what the hell the marionette's armor class was because when the spider attacked it, it seemed it could withstand the blows.
I took advantage of the marionette commanding the spider's aggro, and filled it full of flaming arrows. The creature was like a pincushion punctured by a thousand fiery pins. Even though the marionette was tough and it was doing good damage, it finally buckled. The spider destroyed the wooden thing with a snap of its mandibles; the doll fell apart into splinters, and the Mama Spider turned to us. I continued to rain fiery hell into its bloated body. It was down to around 15% health when it rushed at me. There was no room in the tunnel to kite it so I put my bow back on my back and pulled up my daggers.
I cartwheeled forward and vaulted up and over the spider landing on its back and plunging my daggers in its disgusting body. A foul green goo oozed where I'd wounded it.
Astral Bob rushed from his hiding place and was stabbing the thing with its rapier. I tumbled off the spider landing lightly on my feet behind it. I pivoted round and rushed it again slashing it in a flurry. Astral Bob also jabbed the monster with his rapier, and I saw the rapier did lightning damage, with the crackling of electricity every time he plunged into its body. Then with a roar Elfhair rushed it, shield first flailing with her mace. Anxiety pinged through me. I couldn't let her die. She was only Level 3. I jumped on the spider's body and searched for some weak spot. Astral Bob got a critical and coincidentally Elfhair landed a blow with her puny mace. The thing expired in a groan and a smell like a week-old fart, and collapsed in a heap on the ground like a deflated beach ball.
"See! I got it," Elfhair said.
I gave her a wink. "Good job."
Astral Bob peered behind the thing's cadaver. "Let's see what's here."
A strange sword was laid on a cube of stone. The sword was translucent. I put my hand to its hilt half expecting my hand to go right through it because it looked like some ghost item, but instead the hilt was solid under my fingers so it looked like that this was a real sword despite how ghostly it appeared.
I turned to my companions. "I have no idea what this sword does. But it must do something."
Elfhair brushed sweaty hair from her eyes. "Okay let's go back and look for the other guests."
We went downstairs and met Drexel standing vacantly in the entrance hallway. It looked like he'd been standing there waiting to meet us.
I said, "When do we get to meet Lord Armboth?"
Drexel frowned and shrugged. "My lord is not well. He cannot possibly receive visitors just yet. I hope that tomorrow perhaps..."
Astral Bob said, "I say we should go to the library to see the human painter woman. I'm guessing that we have to question each in turn and that we'll get a riddle from each of them that will eventually make sense."
Elfhair grinned. "No idea what's going on so far, but I'm sure all will become clear."
We made our way through to the library and found Ursula in her long red velvet dress sitting by the mahogany table in the centre of the room. She was reading a red covered book. The title spelled out: Chaos Beasts and The Mastery of Them. It had a gold clasp on it and looked old. Nevertheless, Ursula looked bored it. She glanced up when we entered. Her face was unnaturally pale and her lips blood red. Her eyes were also so violet dark that they looked almost black in this light.
I scanned the room. It was empty apart from her and us. Shelves of ancient -looking books lined the walls. There was a fire in the west wall and it blazed merrily giving off a pleasant heat and an odor of cherry wood.
"Can I help you?" Ursula said.
Elfhair sat down on one of the leather chairs pulled up to the mahogany table. She folded her hands and said, "Actually, Ursula, I was just wondering whether you could help us?"
"Why should I help you? You are complete strangers to me."
Elfhair assumed a reasonable and kind expression. She studied Ursula's face as if she really cared about her, and said very reasonably and kindly, "Ursula, we suspect that something terrible has happened to Lord Armboth. Since the accident, he has not been himself. His butler said he was completely changed in character. Did you know Lord Armboth before?"
Ursula nodded. "He came to see me in my studio in Salonika. He said he'd heard of my work and was very impressed with it. It was then he invited me to come to Armboth Hall, even though it is such a terribly long way. I'd hoped to do well out of the contract, to be honest." The painter examined her elegant red painted nails then glanced up and smiled. "Because as you know, Lord Armboth is fabulously rich."
Astral Bob said, "And how does he make his money? I only ask because I haven't heard of him before."
Ursula frowned and gave a sheepish smile. "It's said he makes his money from delving in the numerous ruins in this area. You probably know that this was once the centre of the elf kingdom of Ostral."
I had heard of Ostral before. The makers of the world of the Greenwood had gone to some lengths to give the continent a back story. The legend of the fabled elf kingdom of Ostral in the south of the continent told how the elf ruins contained great riches, as well as hideous monsters and deadly traps.
Elfhair said, "so Lord Armboth is an antiques dealer of sorts?"
"Or a tomb robber," Astral Bob whispered.
"Either way, it does not matter to me," said Ursula. "I'm a painter; I live by my commissions and I came here in the hope of getting one."
Astral Bob twisted his mouth. "There's something not quite right about this story."
Elfhair said, "On the surface it sounds quite plausible."
Astral Bob said, "No, she's lying about something. I've been around liars so much, I can sniff them out."
Elfhair said, "I can use some influencing skills. I could try diplomacy, or empathy – I'm only low-level but I do have intimidate as well."
Astral Bob pointed at the necklace that Ursula was turning over and over in her fingers. I'd noticed it at dinner. It hung on a leather thong around her neck. It was made of brass in the style of an ancient coin. He said, "I think I'll use my Discern skill. If I can touch that necklace it will tell me an awful lot about her."
I had never heard of the discern skill, but there were many things about the Scryer skill set I did not know.
Astral Bob went over to Ursula. "Do you mind if I look at your necklace?"
The NPC looked surprised. She raised her eyebrows. "Why on earth would you want to do that?
Elfhair said, "I just think he's been admiring it. I've liked it myself since I first saw you wearing it to dinner. Is it very old?
I guess that Elfhair was using her Empathy skill. It seemed to work however because Ursula smiled for the first time. "Yes, it is rather nice, isn't it?"
Now that she was better disposed towards us she allowed Astral Bob to take it between his finger and thumb. He closed his eyes and appeared to be drinking in impressions from the coin.
Eventually he opened his eyes and grinned. He stepped back over towards us and in a low voice, said. "She's no painter. She is an assassin. I can't tell everything about it from to
uching but I was getting distinct impressions of her training and her associates back in Salonika. She's a member of the Assassins’ Guild, I believe and I'm guessing that she's been tasked to come here to kill Lord Armboth."
Astral Bob turned to Ursula and confronted her with what he had found. Clearly the AI was not programmed to resist this, because she confessed straight away.
"It is true I've been hired by someone I can't name to kill Lord Armboth. I do not know exactly the reasons why – I believe it is an ancient feud to do with honour. But Lord Armboth was not here when I arrived so I have been unable to carry out my commission. I plan to wait here until he gets better then kill him." After she gave her explanation her eyes fluttered and she began to speak her riddle:
“No Flower's Scent,
Will Break The Trance,
With This Foul Stink,
You Won't Want To Dance”.
Then she sat quiet.
Elfhair laughed. "Well another meaningless riddle."
I said, "They aren't meaningless. We have two now; there are four guests and I'm guessing we need two more riddles. Hopefully when we get all four it will make more sense."
Then there was a click from the panel in the south wall of the library as it came open. Once again, a dank stone tunnel was revealed.
"I wonder what's in this one?" I said.
"Some quest object I guess. Let's go and see," Elfhair said.
We left Ursula behind us and cautiously made our way over to the tunnel mouth. Even from the entrance I could hear the groans of the undead.
I saw Astral Bob remove another marionette from his cloak and command it to dance on its wooden feet and enter the tunnel. I wondered how many of these he had. Then Astral Bob took out his rapier. I knew that the rapier wouldn't be much use against the undead because they were vulnerable to blunt damage rather than pierce damage, though the electrical effect on his sword should do something. For myself I knew that my stat damaging weapons would be no good against the undead so I took off my bow from my back and fitted arrows. We advanced into the dark tunnel. I heard water dripping from somewhere and the stones under our feet gleamed with damp.
