07/16/745 A.E. About 3 p.m.
S1: Having wandered into the seemingly abandoned and long-lifeless entryway of the ruins of the tower keep, the portcullis had fallen behind our intrepid band of merry adventurers, though they were far from merry at the moment. A thick, bared, wooden gate blocked their progress forward, the portcullis blocked their retreat, and enough of the arrow loops were clear so that archers could fire arrows into their midst. A second volley was already on its way. Escape looked impossible and there was little time. The unseen attackers, whoever they were, had them in their sights, which was where they clearly meant to kill them.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: Gillmesh dived toward one side against a wall, effectively getting out of the crossfire and cutting the number of arrows shooting at him in half since now only one side could see him instead of two. A good plan, for now, the others picked a side and tried for cover after seeing the more experienced warrior's example. Janjit begins springing about, tumbling to throw off the aim of his attackers. It seems to work, but how long can he keep it up? The others remained under what little cover they could find, but arrow damage began to take its toll.
R2: Again, Gill, now desperate, rushed the gate and threw himself against the massive wooden structure. Fortunately for him, the thing had been sitting there exposed to the elements for decades now, and the termites (or worms) had had their way with it. The gate broke open as the weakened bar snapped against the force of the warrior's blow. More arrows pelt the adventurers as they flee into the hall beyond the broken gate, but a door to the right swings open and the archers (a dozen skeletons, short and squat, ape-like in fact) armed with shortbows drop those weapons and drew shortswords instead, rushing the party.
R3: Now that they can see their attackers, the two priests realize undead have a special fear when facing the power of their faith, and when properly challenged, these abominations of nature might cower in fear. Boldly, they both present themselves and their articles of faith (one for Zeus, the other for Poseidon), and most of the skeletons become sore afraid. However, already amongst them, the skeletons have no decent direction to flee in terror and mostly they just stand there, uncertain as to how to proceed. Surrounded by attacks, Katsumi, Gillmesh, and Janjit whittle away at them while the clerics hold the power of awe and fear over the undead.
R4: A few wild swings of desperation from the undead connect here and there in their struggle to flee past those who stood in their way, but soon it is over, and the party stands amidst strewn bones, which were quite brittle, now that their animating magic has left them. Sometime during all this, the shaman ape-man and Garren had fallen due to arrows.
COMBAT OVER:
The ape shaman had an arrow in his gut, but Jarmain removed it and magically healed the wound. Some other healing occurred and soon Garren was up as well, and shortly after that the question of what to do next did arise.
Gill looks around, checking out the guardroom from whence the skeletons came. Inside, he found stacks and stacks of flight arrows, many of which were unusable, and he could see the place was choked with vegetation, but one could still look out many of the arrow loops into the murder hole area where they had almost met their fate. If the timber bar had not be worm-eaten and weathered, they may all be laying dead there now. Unless they might have realized their attackers were skeletons before they fell. Then they might have been able to inspire the appropriate fear, even from the murder hole, if only they had known, but they didn't know and hadn't even guessed.
The warrior kicked around the room, appraising the open, leaking ceiling, looking at the dust, silt deposits, and vegetation that had accumulated over the years. These skeletons hadn't even moved in years, perhaps even decades, mindlessly waiting for some trigger to compel them into service once more - to fulfill some long ago issued order, apparently to protect the complex and attack all intruders. It didn't matter to the undead if they had to wait years, even decades, maybe even centuries before an intruder came - they didn't tire, need sleep, food, or water, didn't get bored, and would never abandon their post. If not for the evil nature that caused the former souls of those skeletons to languish in the afterlife while so entrapped by the animating magics, it might have been a more common practice, using the dead like that. It was a highly efficient act. But it was also an evil act. Now, the skeletons having been destroyed, those lost souls could perhaps resume their journey and find their rightful place in the afterlife, and languish no more.
Finding nothing else of interest or of value, he left the guardroom. There was a room on the other side, he knew, and probably a dozen skeletons over there as well due to the symmetry of this place's design, but they had not come out yet.
Thinking it best not to let the skeletons linger and do god knows what, they decided they had best take care of the left side of the complex and its probable guards. They prepared, solemnly, and then flung open the door.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: "Let thy souls be at rest. Away with thee," presents Jarmain. "Back to the hells from whence thy power comes!" shouted Garren, almost simultaneously with the other priest. The skeletons respond in the expected manner, cowering toward the back wall, but so well pressed up against the wall the party could not easily surround them. And though cowering in fear, when party members got close enough to a skeleton to swing at it, the skeletons would respond in kind, lashing out in fear, their only option. Fortunately, when Katsumi, Gillmesh, and Janjit all hit the same foe solidly, the skeleton shattered right then and there without response. But when they only wounded one, some counterattacks often found their marks.
R2: Crowded, hard to coordinate attacks, the limited room in the limited room made things difficult, and what should have been a day in the park (killing turned skeletons) proved to be no picnic. One-by-one they shattered the skeletons, all too often getting hurt in the process.
R3: Fortune was on their side, thankfully, and the skeletons only attacked when attacked themselves, so even with a dozen of them to start, the majority of them stood ineffectually against the wall, waiting, rattling their bones in fear of the power of the gods through their Orlantian representatives, the priests.
R4 - R5: More of the same, the din of battle so loud in the small guardroom it was almost deafening. More skeletons are destroyed, with the wounds inflicted on party members the coin paid for the destruction of the undead.
R6: In the final round of combat, Gill tripped up, the priests still stood a good distance away, Janjit missed the remaining skeleton as did Katsumi with her first attack, but her second attack finally snapped the spine of the last undead. "Clatter clatter clatter, kaping, ding ding dingsing," the skeleton's flailing shortsword hitting the stone floor and coming to a halt was the last sound of the battle, and then all was again silent.
COMBAT OVER:
This side was clearer. Less vegetation choked the room, and a table also was there with a dissembled ballista on it (taken apart for repair, obviously, somebody just never got around to it). Again, nothing of value or interest was discovered here, so the party decided they needed to rest, heal, and pray. They hoped Sedoc and Trekken would show up while they rested, but after one 5-hour session (4 to relax the weary brain and 1 more to regain spells), their comrades had not yet come. Healing takes place, a few Good Berries are consumed, and they decide to rest again. They rest yet another session and by 2 a.m. they are ready to head out, despite the fact both Sedoc and Trekken are at least 5 hours late. With little they can do about that, they decide to press on and begin a thorough search of the ground floor of the ruins.
07/17/745 A.E.
A rather mundane process, the time slips away as they explore. Two guardrooms, empty save for ancient beds, a central storage area and kitchen, and the hall that went all the way around it was all was that they found. Finally, the tower structure itself stood in the back corner, though the ceiling, what little remained of it, obscured any notion of the tower beyond the first level, though they knew full well the tower extended for 4 more floors above. Many of the walls were broken and toppled, and down the tower's side could be seen a faint, yellowish liquid, eventually collecting near the bottom into a sickly yellow pool where they found many giant cat-like tracks in the moist soil. Janjit finds in a central kitchen area (amongst stores of supplies long gone bad), a secret compartment. Within it, a mahogany wooden case contained the most beautiful set of 12 chalices he had ever seen. He looked them over; their intricate carvings were of magical animals (unicorns, pegasi, dragons, etc.). Evaluating them at about 250 GP each for their artistic quality and valuable metal content, the rogue gave a low whistle when he thought about it. "25,000 SP for one cup, and there were a dozen of them. Wow." It was the sort of quality necessary to make them magic if a wizard had been so inclined to enchant them with some purpose in mind, but he doubted these were magic (and later this is proven to be the case). If there had been plans to enchant them, they had never been carried out.
Katsumi, Garren, Jarmain, and Gillmesh find some rather nice things as well, but these were not hidden so much as they were apparently locked in a couple of foot lockers, maybe forgotten. Who knew their story? One item was a black, silk tent, apparently water proof and extremely light. The tent and a few metal, telescoping poles all weighed no more than 20 pounds. They'd have to set it up sometime just to see how big it was, but this was hardly the time. They also found a rather nice suit of chainmail. Garren actually decided to play with it, trying to pick up any Psychic Impressions of strong emotions from its former owner.
The priest stood there, holding the chainmail, his mind began to drift, back, back, he saw a hill, no, he was on a hill, yes, over looking the tower keep. An immense feeling of satisfaction filled him (him?) as he watched the skeletons laying in the final bricks to his new tower keep. From here, he could do a lot of research without being bothered, and this meant power. Oh yes, the thought of power did bring satisfaction, indeed. Garren snapped out of it then, still holding the armor, wondering about what his vision had seen. He felt tired then and a bit dizzy, so he sat down. He still didn't know too much about this strange psionic ability he had acquire from a magical colored pool some months back, but he was getting used to it.
"Are ye O.K., Gar?" asked Gillmesh. The priest answered, "Skeletons were putting the bricks in place on the tower. The person who wore this armor was probably their master." Gill looked doubtful. "How'd ye know tha?" asked Gill. Garren simply answered, "I think maybe that we're dealing with some type of necromancer if the skeletons were working for this person." Gill didn't get the answer he was looking for, but it seemed to be enough for now. Then he said, "Let's check tha other rooms," giving Garren a last look, making sure he was O.K. before leaving the room.
Further searching produces nothing. Sedoc and Trekken are still nowhere to be seen, and the dawn approaches. (Man, searching carefully takes a lot of time). Now, only the tower remains. From outside, it looked to be in pretty bad shape, especially the second floor where a hole was blasted out of the wall, and toward the very top, which also seemed wrecked. Normal access was only through a ground-level door leading into the tower. Katsumi filled a canteen with the curious yellow water, and then carried it at her side. They entered the door, but discovered it had been blasted off its hinges and then fit back into place without repairing it properly. Gill removed the door and set it to the side, and the illumination from Garren's Continual Light rock showed them all a rock-strewn spiral staircase.
The tower was really one cylinder within another (and later they would find, within another (the much smaller central chimney being the third). The outermost wall had a few windows looking out once they past 3rd level, but none were lower where they were at the moment. The spiral stairs twisted around between the inner wall and the outermost wall. Immediately, there was the door leading to the first inner room. It would later be revealed each level contained only one circular room with a central fireplace, each room being about 20 feet in diameter.
They entered the ground floor room, which apparently had been a study of sorts, with a fine chair, tables, and wine decanters, all of which had all been destroyed in a fire long ago. The place was a real mess. Gill guards the door while the others search, confirming there is little here. Yet they do find some things amid the wreckage. A scrolltube (ivory with gold inlay) containing two scrolls. One spell, apparently a mage's Jump Start spell that ran into a clerical Raise Dead. They could tell it was a Raise Dead and guessed at the wizardly beginning. Jarmain had heard of such a thing, but he had never seen one before. So, a mage could start reading this and the one-use scroll-like magic item would finish itself by completing with the latter spell, perhaps bringing the target back to life. Or a priest could just read the lattermost portion, and the mage portion would simply vanish. There were clerical versions of the same Jump Start trick, they knew, though none were present here, but they would also make it possible for a priest to cast a mage spell. But the construction of such hybrid scrolls took a concerted effort by both mage and priest (or the sometimes rarer combination of mage and priest in one person) so they were not very common. It did seem, though, the former master of this place may have indeed been just that - a magic user/priest. As for the other spell on the discovered scroll, it is yet to be determined, requiring a Read Magic spell to ascertain its exact contents, which they do not have the time to do right then. They proceed to the next level.
Here, they find what they had seen from the outside, the outer wall blasted outwards, weakening the entire structure. The inner room was blasted and burned. It seemed to have been an alchemist laboratory, completely destroyed now. A search reveals two items. One, a crystal vial with a clear blue liquid in it bearing only the letter "H," the rest having been burned off, and two, a small wooden box containing a dozen doses of powder wrapped in individual papers, folded neatly. Some potions, they knew, had less shelf life as a liquid, and by mixing the powder with water, they could use them as needed, greatly increasing the shelf life of a potion while in powdered form. What this powder was, however, remained to be determined. An alchemist at home could probably tell them (for a fee), but they were far from home. They took these things, storing them safely, and then continued upwards.
Janjit did not like the look of the tower above this point. Its structural integrity seemed unpromising to him. "Everyone, be sure to watch your footing," he called back to them, hoping they would pay head. Katsumi, unfortunately, whether it was her fault or not, was the recipient of a falling brick. She looked up and saw it coming and tried to dodge, but she was too slow. Hitting her in the head, the wound bled freely until Jarmain used one of his healing spells to close the wound. In fact, Katsumi now looked better than she had before the incident, Jarmain having done an excellent job. Kat Yuriko let loose a string of words (in Alderami - a.k.a. Elven) that would make a sailor blush (if he knew the elven language, that is). Jarmain simply said, "Be a little more careful in the future," and Kat nodded that she would. A few piles of ash and burnt cloth litter the stairs here. They were the remains of tapestries destroyed in a fire, but what they had depicted, who would now say?
Again, Janjit examines the next door (the third level) and declares it trap free and unlocked. Opening it, they find the room is full of gargoyle statues (perhaps 24 of them), but they are motionless. They litter the room in random direction, each one identical in appearance if not orientation. Toward the back of the room, lying on a stone dais, there is a copper bottle on its side. The group tried a few things, like a bit of fire to irritate the statues, but they are lifeless and unmoving. Kat punches one, but it does no damage. She even throws a metal star (shuriken) at one, but it harmlessly bounces off without leaving a mark. Then it is noticed that this room, like the others, had been burned; yet the gargoyle statues didn't have a mark on them. They surmised they must have been placed there after the fire.
At the behest of the party, Garren cast a Detect Magic spell. It shows three of the gargoyles radiate slightly, the other 21 not at all, and the magic upon the copper bottle is rather powerful. Jarmain decides he has learned all he can and tried to approach the dais to retrieve the bottle. A Gargoyle comes to life.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: The first round reveals a rather unwelcome fact. Even when they hit the creature, all non-magical weaponry simply bounces off. The creature leaps upon Jarmain, a claw/claw/bite/tail stab routine scores all four hits, wounding the cleric badly. For the first time, they see a look of glee play across the gargoyle's normally dour face as it seems to take extraordinary delight in Jarmain's pain. Garren cast a Prayer. The ape-man shaman backs down the stairs since he is not a warrior and he's only along to answer questions and collect information for his tribe. Katsumi, sensing danger, concentrates upon her ring, drawing upon its mystical energies and using it to imbue her katana with magical powers (a temporary thing). But she does hurt the gargoyle with her attacks, or the katana does, anyway, while her secondary non-magical weapon is still completely ineffective. Gill, also armed with magic, scores a hit, but the creature remains standing, fighting, while another gargoyle comes to life.
R2: Janjit uses his only magic weapon, his dagger, and hits the creature. A claw and a tail attack hit Jarmain who tried to use his weapons defensively only. Still, some of its attacks get through, wounding the cleric. A few party members connect with it using magic weapons, and the first gargoyle breaks into rocky fragments. The second one attacks Gillmesh and a third comes to life. Garren heals Jarmain.
R3: Jarmain attempts a Produce Flame, and the gargoyle hits Gillmesh several times. The third gargoyle flees up the stairs and Katsumi gives chase after hitting it on the way out. They battle alone on the stairs, and Kat eventually kills it, but more rocks fall her way from the weakened tower, loosened further by the battle's vibrations, yet they miss her this time. She returns to the party. The flame from Jarmain missed its mark, the small sphere of fire flattens against the wall behind its intended target. Gillmesh finishes the job, slicing into the gargoyle with his magic weapon backed up by his tremendous strength. Again, the rocky fragments scatter across the floor and then come to a complete rest.
COMBAT ENDS:
Katsumi watches the slight glow fade from her katana, her special power now exhausted and unusable until she can pray with the rising sun and recharge her ring. Still, she is glad her abilities served her well now, no matter come what may in the hours immediately ahead. Jarmain felt impulsive and foolish for rushing toward the copper bottle that started this fight. "I'm sorry, guys; I just got a bit headstrong. It won't happen again," he said apologetically. "I have a feeling we may need that bottle in the future, so make sure to bring it along, and don't leave that stopper." Katsumi picks up the bottle, and soon all leave the broken gargoyles and the twenty one mundane statues of gargoyles behind, heading toward the fourth level.
At the fourth level they discover a door, unlike the other wooden ones below, which is made of iron and looks solid. There is a keyhole, but no key. Janjit, using his consummate skill, manages to open it anyway by picking the lock. Inside, the group discovers an eerie, hovering, yellow sphere. The broken ceiling above (the floor to the fifth level) has twisted rain gutters bending down toward the sphere. Apparently, the rain runoff still collected in these gutters, but instead of draining to its intended location, it now ran down onto the eerie sphere. Even now (as it rained nearly every day on this tropical island) it was dripping, and the drops of water hit the sphere, turned yellowish, flowed off, and ran along in rivulets toward the broken wall. From there, it ran down the side of the tower and collected in the mysterious yellow pool where the local great cats, they concluded, must drink from it (perhaps gaining unusual, though potentially sinister powers).
This room, for some unknown reason, was very hot. Inspecting it, they could find no cause for this heat, but Janjit did discover in a pile of rags (normal clothing now decayed) one item, the cloak, a thing of blackest black, save for its silver, metallic trim along the edges, that seemed to stand out (after he dug through the smelly pile of rags). He pulled it free and shook it off, the rotting remnants of the other clothes seemed to effortlessly slide off it. Almost certainly this was magical. "Why would these items be in a pile on the floor?" he thought to himself.
Below the yellow sphere there lay a magical circle, where at some time long past, molten copper metal had been poured into grooves on the stone floor that had been carved into the appropriate design, resulting in a durable magic circle. It looked like something a mage would do, if he wished to summon creatures from other dimensions and control them. All guesswork, however, and still they knew nothing for certain and who had built and lived in this tower long ago, seemingly dead now for decades already.
Someone tosses a rock at the sphere and the rock simply disappears. Unlike the dripping water, the sphere absorbed the rock, so it acted differently to different things. Gill bends the gutters away from the sphere, so now any water runoff would no longer come in contact with the thing. Katsumi thinks not to touch the sphere, herself, but decides to test it, probing it with the tip of her katana. "In the Name of Our Lady of Silence, I banish ye Evil Force to the Land of Kami!" she says. As the blade touches the sphere, a yellow light envelops her katana, then her hand, then arm, and then her entire body, all in a fraction of a second. Quick as anything, she seems to be swallowed by the sphere without a sound. She is gone.
Gill's jaw drops and he sputter out, "Tha were really stupid," looking at the others. Not knowing what else to do, Jarmain cast Augury. "If I jump into the sphere, will I be killed?" To his mind the answer comes back, though more cryptically than he would have liked. "To those who know their laws intrinsic, a way may yet be found." He tells the others what he has learned. He wasn't sure what it meant, but how could a way be found if only death awaited? So it was something other than death - he reasoned. Gill sums up his feeling nicely. "Sonofabitch." Jarmain removes his weapons and sets them on the floor, and then looks at Gill, who is looking back. Both thinking the same thing, they decide to risk their lives for their teammate. They jump in after her. Without a sound, they are gone.
Garren follows, distressed that Katsumi is not with him, and Janjit, with little choice, decides to follow as well. Only the shaman remains, mystified at their actions, quite certain, however, they were all mad before they died. "Poor, stupid, impetuous humans," he thought, picking up Jarmain's weapons and deciding it was way past time to go home. "At least," he thinks, "the yellow water will stop and the cats will no longer drink it. Those brave bastards, foolish, but brave; may their sacrifice have not been in vain." With that, the shaman heads toward his home, departing the ruins and leaving them far behind.
The party finds themselves adrift in a gray void, the only features in the featureless planescape being each other and one naked, dead, skeletal figure. Using a rope, Gill snags them all, in turn, and soon they are together, tied up as a group, but adrift, quite stranded. No matter what, they can't seem to gain any momentum in any direction. They cannot swim out, cannot fly out, and unlike astral or ethereal travel, cannot apparently think themselves into motion. Being very hot here, they are rapidly losing moisture and will succumb to thirst in a matter of a day or two at best. Maybe hours. Gods! It was hot there.
Adrift for a few hours, nothing they try produces any useful results. Garren cast another Detect Magic, and this reveals one small rectangular area in the void is more magical, but the rectangular area is over 100 yards away, they estimate. With no way to get to it, this information proves useless.
Katsumi pours out some of the yellow water. It balls up into a fluid sphere, hanging there. Touching it, the cohesive forces draw the water onto her hands, but she shakes them clean, the smaller yellow orbs of liquid fly off in various directions, eventually disappearing into the misty gray. Gill announces, after a bit, "This is kinda fun, but Ah donea want ta be here fer ever." The others agree, but still no clue as to how escape presents itself. They look at the skeleton, thinking of their own possible future fate. Maybe he drifted there until he died of thirst, and then just rotted away other the years. Was that going to happen to them, too? Not a pleasant thought.
Gill finally makes an attempt. He ties a backpack to his longest rope and throws it at the area Garren discovered. As he flung it, he was propelled back away from the area while the pack went straight toward it. It quickly reached the end of the rope, there was a twang and a tug, and both Gill and the pack stopped, then recoiled, and started to drift back toward each other. Eventually, they were both back to where they had started. The rope was way too short to reach the area of discontinuity. Jarmain thinks to create a small explosion by opening a trapped container he carries, thinking perhaps the blast will propel them in the opposite direction. Though he feels it would hurt, they would survive, and they might get out of here.
Janjit, like Gill, has been using a rope to gather up the skeleton. It had fallen apart when the rope hit it, but the rogue managed to collect some of the larger bones (femur and pelvis). He thought, perhaps, that Gill should not have been tied to the pack, and he went in the opposite direction of the pack when he threw it, only stopping when he came to the end of the rope. What if he threw the bones away from the discontinuity but was not attached to them? All tied together as a group, he did this, and the conservation of linear momentum reigned. (Blessed be the Ike, may his holy laws shine forever). The bones shot away and quickly they were out of sight (being much less massive than the group), but the party finally could discern they were now drifting toward the desired destination in the opposite direction the bones had been thrown, toward that magical rectangular area they had discovered earlier. It took some time, but they made it, and upon reaching the area they fell through it, tumbling into a red room. The stone upon the red floor as very hot, and only their clothing prevented them from being burned, but even that wouldn't protect them for long.
A tall, fiery red giant looking creature with flames playing about his head and shoulders grinned at them. "Ah, more slaves. That is well." Jarmain succinctly captured everyone's thoughts. "OH SHIT!!!" he exclaimed.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: Seeing these mortals were not cowering as they should, the Efreeti decided to hurt them a bit first to teach them the error of their ways. Without effort, he burned Gill and the warrior's skin blistered in a fiery area attack. A diabolic laughter could be heard from the Efreeti. "SOMEONE GET THAT DAMN BOTTLE!!" shouted Janjit. Katsumi handed it to Jarmain as he also desperately seemed to want it and was close to her. The priest began casting a Command spell.
R2: Janjit barely scratches the creature with his magic dagger. The Efreeti laughs and burns the other warrior (Katsumi) and delights as her skin reddens and blisters. "Mawhahhahahhshaha," he laughs. Then Jarmain held aloft the bottle and issued the command word, "ENTER" he shouted. The Efreeti smiled at the ambiguous nature of the command. "Enter? Enter what? Enter combat, enter a state of rage, enter into sadistic delight?" The command was completely ineffectual save for one thing. The Efreeti decided to kill this one, this priest, for his audacity. Then it hit him. The magic of the up raised bottle, slightly behind the spell, was no ordinary bottle. Specially designed for this, it seemed, it held a power over the Efreeti all its own, compelling him to enter it of its own accord. "Noooooooooooooooooooo," his voice trailed off as the magic of the bottle compelled him to enter and entrapped him within the magical construct. Probably thinking his spell had done the trick, (and not the innate power of the bottle), Jarmain, quite pleased with himself, corked the bottle with its leaden stopper.
COMBAT OVER:
The Efreeti screamed at the holder of the bottle, telepathically. "Please let me out. I cannot bear this entrapment," his tone now much improved. Jarmain replied. "And why should I?" Knowing his situation better than anyone, the Efreeti came to a quick decision. "If you free me, I will grant 3 wishes." Jarmain, not a complete fool, thought back at the entrapped entity. "I don't know; if I let you go you'll probably just attack us again." The Efreeti knew he was bound by his word and thought carefully. "I promise, I will not attack you again unless you or your associates attack me first. You have my solemn word. Now release me. Please, I cannot bear this torturous confinement again."
Jarmain begins to relay the Efreeti's offer and promises to the rest of the party, who had been busy with healing and first aid. They look around the barren room but no exits or entrances exist. For a dimensional traveler, this is perhaps not uncommon, but they are stuck here. Even if they let him go, he'd probably make them waste a wish just to get home. "Horrible horrible entrapment, awful curses, let me out, please set me freeeeeeee," screamed the creature, echoing in Jarmain's mind, it began to give him a headache.
Jarmain thought back at the Efreeti. "Return us to the Isle from which we came and then we can make a deal." "Damn," thought the Efreeti, "these mortals are not as dumb as most." "Very well, I will return you from whence you came, to the island, but you must release me first."
Katsumi, hot and thirsty and not thinking, drank some of the remaining yellow water from her canteen. Not a clever thing to do, but so far, no apparent problems surfaced. She shrieked a bit and dropped the canteen, its yellow contents spilling out onto the red floor and almost instantly evaporating. Needing to get out of the overly hot room soon, or expire, they had little choice but to accept the Efreeti's promise. "Set me free and I'll take you to the island AND grant 3 wishes, but set me free, NOW!" demanded the Efreeti, the fear getting the better of him, his mind precariously balanced on the edge of sanity as he remembered his past imprisonment. "Yes, free me now or I won't take you anywhere and you can stay here forever like me, Mahahhahahhahhwhshhwhaa," he was clearly beginning to lose it, the maniacal laughter of deranged claustrophobic a pretty good indication of where the planar creature was at.
Katsumi had taken the bottle and was taunting the demon a bit, making sure it promised to do this and that, and when she was satisfied, she opened the bottle and the Efreeti emerged, thankful of its release, but hating them all the more for the task before him. "At least they will not take that bottle with them," he thought. "Surrender the bottle to me and we can proceed with your wishes," he said, all the while wishing himself he could just kill these puny mortals. Alas, he had given his word, and his word meant something to him, indeed, all his kind.
They argued with the Efreeti about how they never agreed to that (but they didn't exclude it either, and the Efreeti pointed out he could wait for they never put a time constraint on these wishes or when he'd return them to the island, and though the standard defaults were in place, he doubted they could wait 1,001 days in this hot place, cut off from water, cut off from the source of their hierarchal power, and he knew they would not be able to regain spells here and they would eventually be forced to comply, like him, with something they'd rather not do. If they attacked him again, he could kill them, or just leave them here to die of thirst even if the battle should turn against him. "Please, let them attack me, just a little, that will be enough," the Efreeti thought.
They did try to force him back into the bottle, even used another Command spell (as if), but the bottle's enchantments no longer held sway over the Efreeti as he had been voluntarily released and had yet to comply with his promise, and their spells were as ineffective against him as always while on his own domain. After their attempts failed to recapture him, the Efreeti was disappointed they didn't stupidly just physically attack him again, but these mortals were not the garden-variety dopes most mortals were. He sighed. "Surrender the bottle now or I'll leave you here for a day to think about it. Perhaps the heat and lack of water will convince your options are as limited as mine. But consider this before you force this action. If I were the sort to NOT honor my word, you'd probably be dead already." With that, he let them think about it and awaited their response.
SESSION ENDS:
© March of 2000
by
James L.R. Beach
Waterville, MN 56096