Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [DQ] Kadrys: Going Hunting Message-ID: From: hutch@hfglobe.intel.com (Stephen Hutchison) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 07:46:15 GMT [ADMIN] This is posted for Andrea Evans. As Miro tells the group that he knows the location of the priestess' rooms, Kadrys' fangs glitter in a feral grin. 'Well well, Noira, guess who's coming to dinner!' he thinks with uncharacteristic venom. 'Remember me? The vampire you wanted to use for target practise? Before I'm through with you, you're really going to wish you'd killed me instead of 'Raelf.' Red flickers fitfully, ominously in the depths of his eyes as he silently follows the greyclad elf. Soon after, Miro stops at a corridor branch, whispering "We'll split up here. I'll get the souljar from the PCD. Noira's rooms are down the left corridor, but beware. She's got a warning rigged: when you step on one of the stones in the floor, she'll know you're coming. She'll probably send some sort of reception committee out to meet you. Take care." He draws his swords, and fades away. Kadrys changes into bat shape, after explaining that echolocation should let him hear even silent approachers, and also that in midair he will avoid triggering the trap. Lancos and Valgar exchange grim glances then take front and rearguard positions respectively. Alita looks happy to have at least one man between her and any swordplay. William's expression is glazed, as if constant exposure to danger has left him in shock, uncaring. Together the party advance down the corridor, the bat hovering ahead of them, calling constantly down the darkened passageway, listening intently for any distortions in the returning echoes. The party realises to its chagrin that someone must have triggered the trap when the bat suddenly darts back toward them. They all know what this means, readying their weapons as Kadrys swaps to human form, hissing rapidly, "Doorway ahead. Large space beyond. Many moving bodies." The questers stand shoulder to shoulder as a horde of zombies shamble toward them, rotting arms groping toward them, insensible to the pain of their slashing swords. Behind the fighting rank, William is heard whimpering indistinctly, a sound eloquent of abject terror. Or so the questers thought. Their opinions are revised as before their astonished eyes, the zombies tremble and cease the attack. Their skins bulge and split as weird fungi erupt and stretch outwards, warped caps unfolding, threadlike roots feeding with furious speed, corrupting and absorbing the zombies' flesh. In moments, only a few shrivelled mounds bristling with fungal growths remain. The questers tear themselves away from this bizarre sight, grinning hasty congratulations to William before racing on into the large chamber beyond. Noira faces them across the width of the room, framed by her two agony-bound slaves. Kadrys hisses as he sees he will be unable to use gaze to bring them peace again. Noira has ripped out their eyes, placing burning coals in the sockets to constantly sear away the amulet-induced healing. She grins like a shark and snaps some words of command. A white marble statue in the centre of the room moves reluctantly to face them. A larger-than-life figure of a man, muscular and handsome, it would be almost a classical artwork, were it not for the four arms, each gripping a wickedly sharp sword, and the air of determined resistance against a cruel compulsion, which the stone exudes like sweat. Kadrys frowns. 'WhoinHell does that thing look like?' he wonders distractedly. As Alita starts to laugh, Kadrys realises the answer; he grins gleefully at the thought of those two together. Alita's brazen laugh scales down several octaves as succubus becomes incubus, and lecherous masculine amusement pounds at Noira. She howls with rage, "Laugh THIS off, you pleasurelovers!" To the accompaniment of her slaves' screams, she orders the golem to kill. It raises its swords, slowly, then freezes into place. Noira wrings more pain from her servitors, but all they can give her is not enough to compel the golem to actively seek to kill the questers. They realise this, and begin advancing across the room. "Defend me from them!" Noira shrieks, and the golem is forced to obey this lesser command. The party fans out to face the golem, but its multiarmed silhouette is soon ringed with a whirl of flashing blades as its four arms work skilfully in defense. It parries the thrusts of Valgar and Lancos without difficulty. Alita tries to distract Noira, but the priestess has evidently prepared herself in advance to resist the incubus' attraction. William looks round frantically for some earth among Noira's supplies, anything he could sculpt, but finding nothing starts to sob quietly as the emanations of Noira's various experiments eat at the fringes of his mind. Without warning, Miro appears, crying "Krastin - catch!" as he flips daggers of holy ice into the eyesockets of the suddenly visible skeleton. Alita and Valgar, who are standing nearest to the blinded undead, whirl and chop at it, aiming for the strings of toughened gristle binding its joints together. Between them, they hack off its arms, finally dismembering it. But the fight takes time, and absorbs all their attention. Meanwhile, Miro has vanished once more. A moment later, Kadrys catches the sound of the elf's whispered tones, too low to reach Noira's ears, coming from the distant corner where William is huddled. As Kadrys listens, a slow, sharp smile dawns on his face. William nods in agreement to Miro's plan, as Kadrys turns his full attention to the task he has promised himself. Lancos is plying both his swords with equal skill, but he is unable to find a hole in the golem's defensive wall of blades. Kadrys smiles hungrily, looking past the flurry of arms at Noira, who is chanting, her eyes tightly closed, perhaps in concentration, perhaps to protect herself against his gaze. 'Time to... as poor 'Raelf would have said ...get up close and personal with that bitch.' His human form flickers briefly, but does not change to mist. He snarls in frustration. Noira's chanting is re-creating Raven's earlier forbidding: holding him to a solid form. He flicks to bat shape and launches himself at her, but the golem sees him, and the flat of one of its swords hits his muzzle, pushing him backwards through the air. He drops back to his human self as the floor rushes to meet him, lands on his feet. The next moment, two more glittering ice daggers fly from nowhere, no, from Miro's unseen hands, stabbing into Noira's mouth, gashing her lips and tongue. For one crucial moment, her chanting falls silent. Kadrys needs no more. His fixation on his intended prey is too intense to miss such a chance. He cannot be slowed even by the shock of hearing Miro cry out to him in the long-dead Elvish language known only to himself and 'Raelf. Instantly, he flicks to mist and fades past the golem's thrashing blades, resuming his true self only when he is well beyond their reach. He stalks silently across the room, closing on Noira with the inevitability of nightfall. She abandons the breached 'solidity' forbidding, ripping the thorned symbol of Loviatar across her face and screaming an invocation of the goddess' power to turn the approaching vampire aside. But her goddess refuses to respond to her plea. 'Hardly surprising,' thinks one calm corner of Kadrys' mind, floating above the red haze of revenge enfolding the rest of his being, 'if what I think happened between her and Alita is true. I'll soon find out the facts...' Kadrys lunges forward with sudden lightning speed to grab her chin. Her concentration is broken and her eyes involuntarily snap open. The flame of his gaze reduces her will to ashes and she stands frozen, the symbol falling from her loosening grasp. Kadrys pauses to remove the amulets from the necks of her two slaves. In the absence of the enforced healing that locked them within their tormented flesh, their souls depart, freed at last from their unspeakable agonies. As Kadrys turns back to their torturer, he feels the entity's gift rising within him, and he decides to test it. The power of his gaze alters, tapping into the wellspring of the priestess' life, feeding her strength straight into his own being. He shudders at the force of it. Its bludgeoning impact almost breaks his hold on her mind. He feels very much as would a professional wine taster, upon downing a mouthful of raw alcohol. His senses swim with it, but his sensibilities are revolted. 'Pure unadulterated power.' he thinks dizzily, 'But no subtlety. No meeting of minds (though it might not be a bad thing to avoid _her_ mind). No... no pleasure...' And with that thought, he smiles. For the first time in too long, the smile is _not_ a display of wicked fangs. It is his normal, wry expression. 'Ahh, that was so close.' he thinks, 'I almost let my lust for vengeance destroy me. But now I see the trap behind the entity's "gift" of life-draining by gaze. Using such powers, there is no contact with the victim. No knowledge of their mind, their soul. No comprehension of the value of life, of the meaning of taking it from another. ... And it's ironic, that in avoiding the trap of that "gift", I must fall back on what is, after all, the perfect way to achieve justice on this disciple of pain.' He exerts his will once more, not to drain her by gaze, but to reach her mind, to talk. >< _RELEASE_ _ME!_ >< *** Be serious. *** >< How in the Screaming Abyss did you DO that to me, you stinking leech? >< *** Never mind. I won't do it again. *** >< So, you reconsider now! I knew my Goddess would punish you for the fatal mistake of affronting me! >< *** After what you and Alita got up to? Count your curses that your goddess only ignored you just now. She must be deeply - disenchanted with you for having such a Good time. ... Besides, I said I wasn't going to drain you by gaze. I didn't say anything about reconsidering. Or about freeing you. *** >< You. _Will_. Release. Me. _NOW!_ >< *** Yes, I will. From life. But I don't think it'll be that much of a release. Remember that jar? The one you imprisoned 'Raelf in? You really should've smashed it when you took him out of it. Still, I think it's poetic justice... *** >< Do your worst! My Dark Master will free me from the jar. Then I will suffer for my failures. Suffer and grow _strong_! >< *** Are you sure? Don't you wonder what your precious goddess will do to you once you escape and she takes you? Are you sure that you won't prefer to stay in there? *** >< _One_ experience of (shudder) pleasure is permissible to one accomplished in her service. >< *** _One_ experience? Well, I have some bad news for you. I've been reading your memories, and Alita was hauled off you before he'd had the chance to finish the job. But when I take your blood, I won't be interrupted. You'll finally know what _pleasure_ can really mean! *** >< Hah. Empty bluff. I have seen Lord Raven at his feeding. I have feasted on the delicious agony of his victims. I look forward to feeling it from you! >< *** Think again. Vampires aren't all the same, any more than people are. And I am _not_ Raven. *** Silently, in the world outside their minds, he moves to stand right before her paralysed body, encloses her in his arms. He tilts her chin to one side, and bows his head to her throat. Entwined thus, they look strangely like lovers. Lost in the pulsing ecstasy of the embrace, as her life ebbs away she imagines the reaction of Loviatar to a priestess who died of pleasure. Her last living thought is a prayer, no, just a hope that the jar can keep her locked away from her deity's vengeance. As Kadrys drinks, his body, desperately drained after his recent impalement, is healed and restored. The sharp, angular lines of his bones are hidden as his sinews fill out to their normal wiry strength. He senses the priestess' mind fading beyond his reach, feels her heartbeat falter and fail. He wrenches his mouth away from her throat and cries to William "Now!" William holds up the jar and chants "Calthectos Cortartam Talonis!" The hand holding up the jar is lowered as Noira's spirit is drawn inside. William seals the jar swiftly, beaming with a happiness all too rare for him in this place. But their troubles are far from over. With the death of the priestess, the golem seems to go out of control. The defensive parrying becomes a whirlwind of attack, concentrated on Miro. Before any of them could react, the golem drops two of its swords, grabbing Miro with those hands, lifting the struggling elf off his feet and clutching him to its body. The other two swords stab convulsively inward, plunging deeply through Miro's body and into the golem's own chest. Locked together in death, the two crash to the ground. 'No! Miro! The golem - 'Raelf?? Not both of them! _NO_!' Kadrys cries silently in his mind. His eyes are wide and dark, pools of sorrow that cannot be relieved by tears. Then, a whirl of rainbow colours appears, converging from impossible directions on the two bodies. Kadrys has witnessed such a sight only once before: when 'Raelf's shattered body had fallen away and disappeared. He watches with all his being, scarcely daring to hope. The dazzling, bewildering colours coalesce, absorbed into the stony form of the golem. Miro's body is nowhere to be seen. Even his blood is gone. Kadrys' eyes are riveted to the golem as it moves toward an injured Lancos. The vampire tenses, preparing to attack in case his hope proves futile and the golem is just animated stone trying again to kill Lancos. Then, he hears the golem speak in his mind, in a voice he had given up hope of ever hearing again. "_'Raelf!_" Kadrys starts to laugh, dry, weak chuckles of sheer emotional exhaustion. Smiling widely, he moves unsteadily closer as the golem vanishes with a FLICK, and 'Raelf is standing once more before them. He looks if anything healthier than before: his muscles are noticeably larger and more clearly defined. His hair is longer: indeed, Kadrys realises 'Raelf now looks exactly as his elder self had when he appeared at the Inn. Kadrys remains silent, quite unable to find anything to say that could adequately express his feelings. Not that words are necessary. His eyes, his face, speak eloquently of his joy at seeing his friend alive again.