by Kate Novak
Jas threw up her hands. “You heard Selune. If we don’t stop this, the Realms will run out of good luck. Everyone will be at Beshaba’s mercy. I’ve been away for ten years, but Toril is still my home.” She shrugged. “Besides, Tymora tried to help me.”
“Is this the same Abyss where the Queen of Darkness reigns?” Emilo asked.
“Who?” Joel asked.
Finder sighed. “On Emilo’s world,” the god explained, “all the Lower Planes are referred to as the Abyss. The Queen of Darkness inhabits a realm in a lower plane we refer to as Baator. When we speak of the Abyss, we mean a completely different plane.”
“Then I’ll go with them,” Emilo said. “I’ve never been to that Abyss. I should take a look around.”
“Perhaps you haven’t been paying careful attention, Mr. Haversack,” Winnie said sternly. “The Abyss is an evil, horrible place. No one goes there to ‘take a look around.’ Take my word for it.”
“Have you been there?” Emilo asked.
“Once, which was one time too many,” Winnie retorted.
“So you couldn’t resist either,” Emilo noted.
“Resist?” Winnie squeaked. “It had nothing to do with—”
Finder put up his hand to silence the priestess. “Forget it, Winnie. A kender’s curiosity can’t be quenched with tales of horror. They’re completely fearless. I think Mr. Haversack will make an excellent addition to the party. Joel and Jas could use someone older and wiser.”
Winnie sighed. “Very well.”
“The sooner we go, the better,” Joel suggested.
“Wait here while I fetch some things you’ll need,” Winnie said. Once again she left them alone in the garden.
Finder pulled out half of the finder’s stone. He sang a single note, and a blue light burst about his hand, then seeped into the stone. He handed the stone to Joel. “Take this,” he said. “I’ve imbued it with enough power so it can serve you as a power key for a few days, at least.”
“A what?” Joel asked.
“A power key,” Finder repeated. “As I said before, in Beshaba’s realm, your ability to cast priest spells will be greatly weakened. A power key will lessen that effect. It will also keep your spells from being twisted by the nature of the realm.”
“Can I still use the finder’s stone to find Beshaba?” Joel asked.
Finder shook his head. “It can only locate people you know. I wouldn’t recommend using it that way even if you could. Beshaba would be certain to detect it, and you don’t want to attract her notice. Still, the stone has other powers I have never fully understood. Sometimes it functions as if it has a mind of its own, sending out a light to guide the lost. That may work for you. At the very least, it can serve you as a magical torch.”
Selune reappeared before the party. “Lathander will do what he can to obscure Tymora’s sensing ability in the Realms. Lathander suspects that Tymora’s power has been overmanifesting itself all day.”
“We’ve arranged a party to investigate Beshaba’s realm,” Joel said.
The goddess gave Joel a look of motherly reproach and said, “I may have been in another plane, but I had no trouble sensing the plans you were making here. There can be no doubt you are a priest of Finder. You’re as reckless a fool as he.”
Joel lowered his eyes, unable to face the goddess’s disapproval.
Finder stepped between the goddess and his priest. “They stand as good a chance as any other adventurers. It would be no more difficult for Beshaba to destroy the strongest proxy in your court, my lady, than to destroy a lowly follower of mine. With any luck, Beshaba may take no note of their arrival.”
“We may not be able to count on luck,” Selune said darkly. She looked again at Joel and warned, “Do not lose the power key. It could be used against Finder as long as it holds some of his power. I hope you will guard it better than Finder did the last time he filled it with power.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joel said nervously. Less than a month ago Finder had stored more than half his power in the stone, then had it stolen by the evil priestess Walinda, who had given it to her master, a crazed banelich. Joel and Finder had been forced to do the banelich’s bidding until they’d managed to wrest it away from the evil undead creature.
“It would be impossible to guard it worse than I did,” the god pointed out with a smile.
Selune gave a derisive snort.
Winnie returned, carrying a sheathed sword. Two human servants behind her carried backpacks of gear. The halfling stood before Jas.
“It is the custom of my lady to loan this sword to those who perform a mission for her,” she explained to the winged woman. “It’s a fine weapon, and it will bring you luck.”
Jas looked at the others uncertainly.
“If you’re intending to help Tymora, save the Realms, and keep Joel out of trouble,” Selune said, “you’d better accept the sword.”
Jas took the weapon from Winnie. She slid its sheath onto her weapons belt, then drew it out to examine it. She tested its balance and smiled.
“When you’re ready to return, you can use the sword to wish your party back here,” Winnie said. “Wish aloud, and wish carefully, so no one is left behind. A wish will attract the attention of everyone from Beshaba to the tanar’ri lords, so you don’t want to remain in the Abyss after you’ve made one. Just use the wish to get home, nothing else,” the priestess warned. “In the backpacks, you will find food and water, a tarp for shelter, a magical lantern, rope, some healing potions, and a few magical scrolls that you may find useful. There is also some gold; creatures in the Abyss are not above accepting bribes.”
“Beshaba’s realm is the thirteenth layer of the Abyss,” Selune explained. “Long ago the layer was flooded to prevent the baatezu from ever invading it again. Umberlee, the evil goddess of the sea, makes her realm in those waters. Towering over the waters is the Blood Tor, a massive rocky peak that some sages say rivals Mt. Olympus in size. Beshaba and her court live in a cavern complex within the mountain, somewhere near the pinnacle. I will make you a gateway in the mountainside. You will have to discover your own route into Beshaba’s caverns. Many other evil things live on and within the Blood Tor. Take care to avoid as many of them as you can.”
Joel nodded.
“Finder and I will be able to detect what is going on throughout Beshaba’s realm the moment you arrive, but the longer you stay, the more we can learn. You do not need to get close to Beshaba for us to sense her, but you may be safer near the heart of her realm,” the goddess explained. “The fiends in the Abyss avoid tangling with the powers. If creatures there think you are one of Beshaba’s minions, they will avoid you. You do not need to take risks. For now, we only need you to be our eyes, not our armies. Do you understand?”
Joel nodded in agreement.
Selune motioned with her hand, and a magical portal formed beside the root ball of the fallen birch tree. A barren wind-blasted slope appeared on the opposite side of the portal, and an unpleasant odor issued forth, which Joel recognized as the stench of blood.
Joel felt a twinge of fear, but his determination did not waiver. Finder was relying on him to help Lady Luck, and so were the luckless Realms, although no one there probably yet realized their peril.
Finder embraced his priest. “Be careful. I don’t want you as a petitioner yet,” the god said.
“I will,” Joel promised. He picked up one of the backpacks provided by Winnie. Jas picked up the other one. Together they stepped into the Abyss.
“Hey, wait for me,” Emilo called out and leapt after them.
Offstage
Somewhere in the Prime Material Plane on the world known as Toril in Realmspace, Mirt the Moneylender settled his prodigious girth on a heavy ironwood chair and said, “You are the last person I ever expected to see in my office.”
Joshuan Havabuck—“Fast Joshy,” as he was known on the street—squirmed in his chair, his furry halfling feet dangling a good foot off the floor. “Woul
d that you were not seeing me, guv’nor,” the halfling said, “but I appreciate your willingness to aid my situation.”
Mirt folded his hands over his belly and smiled. His aid always came at a hefty, if deferred, cost. “It’s hard to believe that you, of all people, are short of ready money,” Mirt stated. “You’ve lectured me many a time about keeping your eggs in numerous baskets.”
“Diversification,” Havabuck said with a sage bob of his head.
“Numbers running, smuggling, pornographic Talis cards, stolen goods …” Mirt enumerated Havabuck’s baskets, ticking them off on his sausage-sized fingers.
“All solid enterprises,” the halfling boasted, “though subject to normal irregularities and marketing fluxes.”
“So why are you here?” Mirt asked.
The halfling sighed, a sigh that ended in a shuddering sob. A moment later Havabuck pulled himself together and explained. “It’s my core business, guv’nor. The ready money for all the others comes from a lottery I run in Dock Ward. A bet on the total daily tonnage that comes into Waterdeep, as reported by the dockmaster.”
“An honest man,” said Mirt solemnly.
The halfling nodded. “Incorruptible, and best of all, a man with a trustworthy demeanor. The lottery costs a gold lion a ticket, and it pays out a thousand gold lions. Normal take is ten thousand lions, so I get a tidy profit, which I can use to cover losses of other, less dependable operations.”
“Unless more than ten people pick the winning number,” said Mirt.
The halfling suppressed another shudder and nodded.
“So I take it more than ten people won?” Mirt queried
The halfling nodded again.
“Fifteen people?”
The halfling pressed his lips together and did not respond.
“Twenty?”
Havabuck shook his head.
Mirt’s eyes widened in surprise. “Thirty people all picked the same number?” he asked in a breathless whisper.
“All of them,” the halfling declared in a piteous whine. “All ten thousand miserable souls picked the same bleeding number. And it was the right number. They’re all expecting payment tonight.”
A silence pervaded the room as Mirt marveled at the anguished halfling before him. A lesser being might have taken the ten-thousand-gold-lion take and fled the city. Yet Havabuck was prepared to take on the obligation of paying out the ten million gold lions, not to mention the interest payments on the loan. Mirt suspected the halfling was prepared to pay any price to retain the honor of being a major crime lord of Waterdeep.
With such round figures, Mirt did not require his abacus to calculate the interest. He slid the wooden frame aside and drew up the papers.
“You have enough armed guards to cart away the principal?” Mirt asked as the halfling signed the papers.
Havabuck nodded. He was nothing if not efficient.
It only took four hours to clear the one hundred thousand bags of gold from Mirt’s treasury, since Havabuck had not thought it necessary to count the coin in each sack. Mirt’s reputation was unimpeachable
Much later that evening, as Mirt sat calculating which gems, magical artifacts, and art pieces he would be selling to partially replenish his stock of coin, a masked figure appeared before him. Mirt was not startled. The mask was one of the helms worn by the members of the council who ruled the city. The council members kept their identities secret.
“I was wondering if you would be dropping by,” Mirt said, motioning for the anonymous figure to have a seat. “You’ve heard about Havabuck. What do you think? Godly influence? Did Havabuck enrage Mask, Master of All Thieves, or simply annoy Beshaba? Or perhaps this is a mad plot of Cyric, Prince of Lies.”
“Havabuck isn’t the only victim,” the figure said.
Mirt’s eyes widened in surprise.
“The Cassalanters have made two similar loans, one to Widow Silvermane for a similar lottery that she runs in the North Ward, the other to the Field of Triumph Race Track in Sea Ward. Over four hundred people placed bets averaging fifty gold lions on a horse named Song of the Wind before the track could post new odds. The horse ran as if Kesef the Chaos Hound was chasing him. Won three lengths ahead of the favorite. Then there’s the good luck of a venture capital company called The Rock, which funded an adventuring group that took out two beholders and raided their lair. That’s another million to be divided between the company’s one hundred and sixty shareholders.”
“So do you have a theory?”
“Don’t need a theory. There’s something wrong with Tymora,” the figure said. “Her priests are keeping it hushed up, but they’ve made a private off-the-record admission to Lord Piergeiron. Lord Piergeiron sent me with a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Could we be in the same trouble as Amn?”
“Amn?” Mirt asked.
“Yes. Remember a few years back when Amn invaded Maztica and brought back all that gold? A bushel of corn cost fifty gold there after the war. You said it was because there was more money circulating through their kingdom than actual goods that the money is supposed to represent.”
Mirt nodded slowly. “It’s a theory espoused by some sages.”
“Could Waterdeep be in the same danger?” the masked figure asked.
Mirt slid a few beads across his abacus. His fingers were quick and sure. “I don’t think so,” he said finally, but his tone was not certain.
“Suppose similar things happened again tomorrow?” the masked figure asked. “Suppose that much money came in all week?”
Mirt gave a low whistle. He slid all the beads on the abacus to one side with a violent sweep of his hand. “Then,” he said, “we’d be in a lot of trouble.”
Act Two
Scene 4
Joel, Jas, and Emilo stepped through Selune’s gate onto a wind-blasted mountainside. The party’s first priority became shelter. The wind blew stinging particles of dirt into their face and made walking difficult. They huddled on the leeward side of a large boulder and surveyed their surroundings.
The Blood Tor was no simple conical peak, but a complex series of steep boulder-strewn faces, sloping, buttresslike ridges, and cliff-walled ravines. The adventurers couldn’t even see the pinnacle from their current position because their view was blocked by steep faces above them. Downwind, the slope grew progressively steeper, until it was almost a cliff wall. Upwind, the slope was steep but manageable. If they walked into the wind, they would come to another face that rose to a ridge. The ridge climbed until it ran into another mountain face at a considerably higher altitude some distance away. There was no evidence of any caves.
Joel pulled out the finder’s stone and tried imagining a cave opening in the side of the mountain. Whether the stone was reacting to his mental image or just trying to keep him from heading into danger, Joel had no way of knowing, but it issued a weak beam of light in the direction of the higher mountain face off in the distance.
“We’re going to have to walk into the wind,” Joel said.
“What?” Jas shouted.
Joel repeated his words, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind.
Jas nodded. Her wings, Joel noted, had altered once more. Now they were bat-shaped, but their color was bright scarlet with golden flecks. Ignoring the transformation, as she always did, Jas opened one of the backpacks Winnie had supplied for them and rummaged around until she found several kerchiefs made of some lightweight fabric. They wrapped the kerchiefs around their faces, shouldered their backpacks, and stepped out into the furious wind.
There was no trail that Joel could perceive, and the slope was treacherous. Rocks gave way beneath their feet and slid and rattled down the mountainside. Far, far below, the waves of a blood-red sea pounded at the mountainside and shot upward in frothy spumes. Overhead, the sky was completely overcast. Black clouds flickered with sheet lightning. It was unclear what illuminated Beshaba’s realm, but it was bright enough on the mountainside for
their shadows to pool at their feet. Nothing grew on the wind-blasted slope but the red and black lichen that covered the gray rocks all around. They traveled in silence, unable to make themselves heard over the wind.
Time was hard to judge, but it had to be at least an hour before they made it to a notch in the ridge. The climb had exhausted them, and the roar of the wind left them dazed. They passed through the notch. On the other side of the ridge, the slope was less steep, dropping gradually into a great sheltered bowl where a few stunted trees grew. A ledge just wide enough to serve as a trail traveled along the ridge on the sheltered side. There, out of the wind, it seemed almost quiet, and they rested and made a general inventory of the equipment Winnie had packed in the backpacks.
Jas pulled out a padded flask of water and took a few sips. As she handed the flask to Emilo, something large and dark leapt through the notch in the ridge. The creature, a great black stag with red eyes, bounded sure-footedly down the slope. Its rack might have gored an elephant with ease. The beast so startled Emilo that he dropped the water flask. The flask rolled down the hill, spilling its precious contents.
“Rotten luck,” Emilo muttered, prepared to lunge after it, but Joel held him back by grabbing the kender’s vest.
“Careful,” the bard said. “It would be worse luck if you went rolling after it and fell down a cliff.”
“Sorry,” the kender said. “I never drop things like that.”
“The black stag is her symbol,” Joel said, purposefully avoiding using Beshaba’s name. Without Selune and Finder to shield them, using the goddess’s name could attract unwanted attention.
Joel lowered Emilo down the slope with a rope attached to his belt so he could fetch the flask, then hauled him back up. The flask was more than half empty, but at least they had it back. If they were desperate enough, Joel could create water to fill it. The party traveled along the ledge on the sheltered side of the ridge. As the ridge climbed higher, the adventurers grew tired quickly and were forced to rest often.
