The Companions of Tartiël

by Jeff Wilcox

  “I merely convinced her that her life is precious,” Kaiyr replied humbly. “It is good to hear of her efforts. However, I hold doubts as to whether she will be able to aid us outside this temple.”

  “Outside?” Caineye raised an eyebrow.

  Nodding, Kaiyr responded, “Yes. We cannot wait here forever. At the very least, we shall need to forage for more supplies. Water we may have in plenty, thanks to your ability, and that of many of the priests, to conjure it magically; but we need food, as well.” He rose and gently touched one of the tree’s leaves. “I also have no intention of waiting here until our enemies come for us. It is better for us to gather information about our enemies and surroundings and to mold the battlefield to our liking. I have been studying the streets and the enemies since this morning, but I would like a few more hours to analyze the situation, as well as to see if our foes patrol as often at night as they do during the day. I intend to go outside on the morrow.”

  Caineye stood and moved next to his companion. “I was getting a bit restless myself—where are you going?” he asked as Kaiyr strode toward the trunk and began descending the stairs carved into the wood of the tree.

  “It is lunchtime,” the blademaster replied with his usual simple yet sagacious logic, “and Lady Solaria wishes to see me. I shall return after I have eaten. Can I bring you anything, Master Caineye?”

  Frowning thoughtfully, the druid sat himself back down and nodded. “Please. I’ll take a leaf from your book and study the city while I’m here.”

  Kaiyr nodded and disappeared down the stairs.

  *

  “Okay,” I said, leaning forward in my seat. We had started early on Saturday, beginning the session at one o’clock, after we had all eaten our fill of the university’s weekend brunch (and by fill, I mean nibbled at, terrified that the stuff on our plates might jump up and strangle us). “Here’s what I figure. We have about forty people to take care of. Dingo says there’s about enough food for the next two days, but beyond that, we’re going to starve. Or rather, they’re going to starve, since all of us bought everlasting rations and everfull mugs. So as for the party, we’re set, but we have to take care of these folks. We don’t know why nobody seems to be moving in the city. If there was anyone left alive, we’d have to have seen at least one of them. I’m thinking that mustard gas from yesterday must have been… well, mustard gas.” I raised my hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Anyway, I’m hoping that said mustard gas isn’t still out there, or we’re totally screwed, ‘cause Xavier probably can’t afford to fill his level-two and –three spell slots with delay poison and neutralize poison.”

  I paused to think, and Matt leaned back in his chair. “Got a plan?”

  Grinning, I nodded. “As usual, yes, although it’s still a work in progress. I’m trying to think of how we can get out there and do some scouting without betraying our hideout. I mean, if the wolf army figures out where we’re hiding, we’re screwed.”

  “What about the forest behind the temple?” Xavier asked. “We could go out the back door, the one we came in when Wild dispelled the lycanthropy, and then through that park so we come out somewhere far away from the temple.”

  I pointed at him. “Great idea, man. Especially since we haven’t seen any sign of the wolf army in the forest, they’ll never see it coming.” I thumbed my chin. “Let’s do it. I’ve got an idea. Kaiyr moves twice as fast as either of you, meaning that I can Hide and Move Silently at half speed and still keep pace with you guys. Why don’t I take to the rooftops? I can scout from there, and if I stay slightly away from the edge of any given building, I can make Hide checks to avoid being seen, if we even get close enough to an enemy to need to resort to that. Besides, and this is less D&D-based but more reality-based, predators, including wolves and humans, tend to look ahead and down, not up, when hunting. So hiding up high would make more sense, anyway.”

  Dingo nodded when I looked over at him, and then he asked, “How’s your Hide check looking?”

  I shrugged. “Not half bad, at least. I can just take ten

  [40] on the check. With a Dex of twenty and blueshine on my armor—yeah, I got that, after all—the base DC to Spot me at ten feet would be seventeen. And, since I’ll be twenty or thirty feet up most of the time, the DC will be even higher.”

  The other guys, Dingo included, thought it a very sound plan, so our characters set out from the temple of Alduros Hol, over the river, and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we went. Only Grandmother was dead and mustard-y.

  *

  Caineye gently touched the decomposing body on the floor of the middle-class house the party had chosen to investigate. The trip there had gone surprisingly well, Kaiyr navigating the city streets and steering the party out of sight of the occasional patrol of wolves and their ilk.

  “She was definitely poisoned,” Caineye confirmed, rising and dusting his hands off on the thick fabric of his warrior’s skirt. “I can’t say for sure exactly what killed this family, but if I had to venture a guess, it would be some kind of burnt othur. But I’ve never heard of othur killing with this kind of efficacy; it’s almost like the poison was extra-concentrated.” He shook his head and glanced around the house, locating and heading for the kitchen. “I didn’t prepare detect poison this morning, though I probably should have thought about it. What really concerns me is how the enemy delivered so much airborne poison all at once. What if they do it again?”

  Wild, peering through the band of a simple silver ring, frowned. “Any idea why the poison didn’t reach us? Shouldn’t we be all mustard-y and shriveled like Gran here?”

  Caineye shook his head. “It could be any number of things.”

  Kaiyr, standing vigilant by one curtained window, nodded sagely. “Indeed. Perhaps they simply did not have enough poison to affect a larger radius. The temple is near the golden boundary under which we find ourselves.”

  “Or, perhaps the temple itself stopped the poison,” Caineye offered. “Plants have been known to absorb and metabolize some airborne poisons without deleterious effects. Or maybe it’s something more divine than that.” He lifted a slab of dried meat and sniffed at it, wrinkling his nose. “Ugh. I suddenly wish I hadn’t left Vinto behind. He’d be able to tell if this was poisoned just by smelling it.”

  “I wouldn’t be too surprised if the god of all nature decided to hedge out all the unnatural poison spreading toward it,” Wild agreed, flipping his newfound ring into the air and catching it deftly on his forefinger, where it slid down to his knuckle without any action on the halfling’s part. “So, what’s our plan, then? Take back as much of this food as possible, purify it with magic, wash, rinse, repeat?” He looked at Kaiyr.

  The blademaster joined Caineye at the kitchen counter but did not touch any of the food there. “Precisely,” he said. “It is our only option if we wish to feed so many mouths. More, we can even bring rotting food, because the magic Caineye and the clerics wield will also restore such food to edibility.”

  The halfling chuckled. “Oh, boy. I feel like a seagull. Anyway, should we take this stuff back now, Blademaster, or are we to keep exploring first?”

  Kaiyr shook his head. “We are far from the temple. We should not burden ourselves with so much spoiled food for such a distance. Let us return for now; later this evening and on the morrow we can harvest supplies from the houses nearest the temple.” He went to the window and peered out for a minute, scanning the streets with his dark blue eyes. “Let us go.”

  Wild snorted and opened the door for Caineye. “Harvest,” he said, “right.”

  Outside, Kaiyr sprang from the ground onto a windowsill in the alley next to the house they had investigated, then jumped up from there to the windowsill on the second story on the opposite building, and from there, onto the roof of the first. Wild glanced over at Caineye. “I still don’t get how he manages to do that and look good doing it.”

  Caineye felt a smile cross his features. “Blademasters,�
� he said by way of answer.

  “Blademasters,” Wild agreed.

  It was as the three companions reached the first main intersection that Kaiyr spotted a group of raiders emerging from a small side street. Gliding back to the other two, he caught their attention with a soft whistle and motioned for them to take cover, using a sequence of hand signals he and Caineye had been designing to relay information about the enemy’s numbers and direction.

  The invaders, as misfortune would have it, turned down this street, and Kaiyr pressed himself flat against the gable on the alley side of the building. Below, two wolves and three humans strolled by, the humans engaged in quiet banter but the wolves constantly searching, their noses twitching to catch scents and their ears turning every direction to better scour the cityscape for survivors.

  Master Caineye, Kaiyr transmitted through their paired amulets, they shall find us by scent alone. As soon as any of them notices our presence, we will launch our attack.

  Caineye did not reply, but the blademaster knew the druid better than to imagine his instructions had been ignored. Creeping to the edge of the roof overlooking the street, Kaiyr watched as one of the wolves stopped and looked around, apparently having caught the scent of living creatures. “Someone passed through here recently,” the wolf said, and Kaiyr paused. These were Terth’Kaftineya! They had strange markings and could apparently breathe fire, but the gravelly quality of the creature’s voice betrayed its true heritage.

  The three humans drew swords, but Caineye and Wild were already on the move. From the darkness, one of Wild’s daggers flitted out like an angry wasp, burying itself hilt-deep in one human’s shoulder. As blood seeped from the wound and the man cursed in pain, Caineye burst from the shadows, launching a splinterbolt from one hand. His target, one of the fiendish Terth’Kaftineya, dodged aside too slowly, and the giant, wooden spear grazed the creature’s side, drawing a red line in its patterned fur.

  This Terth’Kaftineya leaped forward and latched onto Caineye’s armored arm with its powerful jaws as the other canine creature stepped forward and released a blast of fire that covered the first Terth’Kaftineya and Caineye and stretched into the alley, where Wild had concealed himself.

  “Whew!” shouted the halfling from the darkness, “Close one!”

  Kaiyr was more troubled with the fact that the Terth’Kaftineya harrying Caineye seemed utterly unconcerned by the fact that it had just taken a huge blast of fire point-blank. He manifested his soulblade and dropped from the roof, landing in a crouch next to Caineye. In one swift motion, he severed the head of the Terth’Kaftineya still clamped firmly onto the druid’s arm.

  “Thanks,” Caineye said, and the blademaster nodded silently and braced himself against the rush of the three humans, who had been slow to react to the ambush.

  Twisting slightly to the right, Kaiyr nimbly evaded the first strike: a wild, overhead swing. Then, turning a robe-flashing pirouette, he parried the second soldier’s strike, while the third’s sword thrust just under the blademaster’s arm, barely even grazing his robes.

  Wild darted from the alley and joined Kaiyr in whittling down the trio of soldiers while Caineye dropped back, cringing in pain from the Terth’Kaftineya’s breath attack. The druid fell into his spellcasting, and as the first soldier fell to the blades of the elf and halfling, Caineye finished his spell and called down a bolt of lightning from the sky on the remaining wolfish creature. It dodged aside but still suffered from the sudden strike, stumbling as its muscles momentarily lost control.

  Then it leaped forward, nipping at Caineye’s brass dragonscale armor and forcing the druid back as he called down bolt after bolt to singe and shock his enemy until finally, the Terth’Kaftineya succumbed to the elemental barrage.

  Kaiyr stepped aside as the last soldier fell, Wild’s dagger in his back, and nodded at Caineye. “Are you well?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Caineye said, clutching his left arm, which the canine had held onto and torn at in its mouth. He hadn’t suffered any bleeding wounds, but the Terth’Kaftineya had tugged sufficiently at the druid’s arm to dislocate his shoulder. Wincing, Caineye cracked it back into place and worked some of the soreness from his arm.

  Burying his soulblade in the body of the offending creature, which was still twitching, the blademaster released his grasp on his spiritual weapon and glanced down the road, where a great cloud of dust had hung in the air for the past several days, obscuring his view of whatever lay beyond a mile or so from the temple. “We should move. Our battle shall surely have attracted attention—” Whirling, Kaiyr called his soulblade to hand, and he pointed it at a shadow that seemed to undulate slowly within the rubble of a building that had collapsed after being burned to the ground in the raid. “Show yourself,” the blademaster commanded imperiously.

  The shadows recoiled from the blademaster’s threatening stance but then coalesced and surged away from the gloom of the alley. “As you will,” emanated a voice from within the dark mass. The words crackled with the crispness of lightning and rolled with thunder and the roar of fire and the waves of the oceans. A pair of yellow dots appeared within the incorporeal creature, floating up from the ground and settling near the top of the shadow-being as it drew itself to its full height of just over six feet.

  Kaiyr narrowed his eyes as the creature stared back in silence, its yellow orbs unblinking. Neither Wild nor Caineye moved, sensing the tension in the air. The blademaster’s expression retained the faraway look in his eyes that meant he was still focused on battle. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  In its elemental tone, the shadow creature replied, “I have no true name to give. However, among my kind, I am known as Jinn. Your battle against these creatures attracted my attention; you fought well. Perhaps you may even have the power and coordination it will require to survive the coming storm.”

  The blademaster continued to stare at this creature. Its alien eyes returned the gaze, unblinking; Kaiyr could not get a reading on this creature. Composed of seemingly little other than tangible shadow, the watchful elf could not follow its movements to determine whether it would attack, and its tone gave no hint as to the truth of its statements. Without a reason for hostility, he slowly lowered his soulblade and let it disappear. “Storm? You know of what is transpiring here?”

  The shadow’s top undulated in an approximation of a nod. “I do. It is my job as a watcher to see, hear, and document monumental events such as these. And what is to come… will change the lives of millions of people, if it does not change the face of this world of Tartiël.”

  Caineye moved to stand next to Kaiyr, and Wild joined the other two. “What do you mean? You know what’s going to happen here?” the druid asked.

  “I do.” The watcher waited, studying the trio of adventurers, who also waited for the creature to divulge more.

  Wild took the initiative as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Could you, ah, happen to tell us what we’re dealing with here?”

  The shadow wriggled, the yellow points of light serving as its eyes zipping left and right. “It is not my place to reveal that which has not yet happened. However, I can show you the danger which lies on the horizon,” it finished over Wild’s and Caineye’s complaints. Turning toward the great cloud of dust still hanging in the air, the watcher’s gaze pulled with it the companions’ attention. A few heartbeats later, a gust of wind rushed through the street, blowing Kaiyr’s hair and robes into a flurry and nearly bowling Wild head over heels. The wind traveled down the street, slamming shutters open and closed and shattering many windows in its wake. When the two forces met, the dust kicked up into an angry swarm, but the clear air fought it off, dispersing the cloud and revealing what lay beneath.

  “By the gods,” Wild gasped. Kaiyr’s eyes narrowed again as he silently recognized the castle that lay beneath. “That’s the stronghold we saw in the portal in Andorra… the one leading to the swamp.” A brief grin crossed his face. “I wonder if they ever found that body….�
��

  As the dust dispersed, Kaiyr hopped from windowsill to windowsill in order to gain a better vantage point from a nearby rooftop. Peering into the distance, his keen eyes could make out many dark forms swarming over the ground. He could not be certain whether the clearing of the dust had anything to do with the fact that they were surging outward from the spires of the black fortress that had plopped itself right inside the city, but it was a safe bet.

  “We must go,” the blademaster called down from the rooftops. “There is an army around the castle, and now that they are exposed, we seem to have drawn their ire.”

  “Have they spotted us?” Caineye asked.

  “No, we are too far away and too few,” Kaiyr said with certainty. “Come. Follow me as you did on the way here.” Glancing down at his companions, he saw that the creature calling itself “Jinn” had disappeared. “Hm,” the blademaster muttered, annoyed. “Like smoke.”

  *

  “So, you all make it back to the temple without running into any more patrols,” Dingo told us. “What are you guys doing now?”

  I shrugged and tossed my d20 back into my box. “Well, I guess we should prioritize taking care of the people inside the temple. Xavier, shall we implement our little plan to get supplies?”

  Nodding, my roommate responded, “Sure.”

  “All right,” our DM said, “what’s this plan?”

  “Well, I’m going to suggest Caineye prepare several copies of the burrow spell from the Spell Compendium, maybe even mass burrow. Kaiyr then asks all available clerics to, on the morrow, prepare several purify food and drink spells. That way, we can bring back even poisoned and rotting food and water, and their spells will make it edible and even fresh. We’re going to start by raiding the nearest houses first and stripping them of supplies before widening our search.” I sat back as I explained my plan and punctuated it with a swig of Pepsi.