Post by Dead Greyhawk on Feb 20, 2008 20:25:40 GMT -5
A large room, octagonal in shape, with a great spiral staircase wending its way up the middle of the room lies before the Company. Seven doors, one in each face of the octagon, stand before them, the eighth at their back. Each of the doors appear of similar construction, thick oak bound with iron. The ceiling rises far overhead, out of sight, more than sixty feet above. The spiral staircase will be daunting to climb.
After a short discussion, the Company chooses to open the doors in the octagonal room rather than climb upwards. While the stairs may lead up into the castle, the Company is somewhat loathe to leave potential enemies behind them, imperiling their retreat. Otto enters into the octagonal room and immediately looks down at the ground, searching for tracks.
The floor of the room is cleaner than might be expected, but Otto has much experience now in tracking indoors as well as out. Faint tracks are visible leading to the stairwell from the door the Company stands before, but also to two other doors, one to the right and one across the room. Additionally, the sign of a large snake is visible in the dust, leading to a door on the left. The snake spoor is faintest and irregular.
The Company chooses to follow the trail to the far door, where Otto succeeds in shouldering it open, splintering the frame again. Another passage, similar to the one they just left, extends out before them. Otto locates the tracks that he wants to follow and, carefully, they walk down the passage. After only a few tens of feet, the passage branches, and the tracks disappear. It is as if the floor has been swept clean of dirt and dust. Only in the corners where the floor and walls meet does any dust remain. Otto's jaw creaks as he grinds his teeth together.
"Straight. We go straight," declares Raven, directing the others forward. The Company slowly moves forward and finds the passage turns to the right and then turns to the right again, with a door on the left wall between the two turns. "Jasper, go up there and see if this is a big square," says Raven. Jasper looks confused and about to open his mouth, so Raven interrupts. "Go down the corridor and always turn to the right and see if you run into Grizela and Perrin." Jasper runs off at a sprint and a minute later is welcomed by the rear guard of the Company. "Next he'll tweet at them," mutters Raven.
Otto, who has been looking at the door, believes that it can easily be opened, and, with a wrench, it is. A rectangular room, the long axis perpendicular to the entryway, lies behind the door. On the far side of the room are three doors equally spaced along the wall, but next to the entryway is a small broom. Otto glares at the broom.
The Company enters the room after Otto frustratingly finds that any tracks have been brushed away by what looks like a small broom. Otto moves over to the right hand door and thrusts his shoulder into it. With a small popping sound, Otto disappears from sight. The rest of the Company stands in shock, or fright, at Otto's disappearance. "Um, Otto, you there?" asks Antonus. No one responds.
"This is not good," says Raven, as he picks up the broom. "Maybe its an illusion or something? Like a deep pit with a ward against sound?" He walks over before the door. "Jasper grab my belt; don't let me fall in," he directs, and then he leans forward and thrusts the broomstick at the door. With a staccato sound like the echos of the earlier popping sound, Raven and Jasper disappear from sight.
"Oh man, now what do we do?" says Antonus, looking somewhat wildly about him. His stomach and innards still feel frozen from the spectre's touch, and all he wants to do is find a place to go to sleep. Now two of the most powerful warriors of the Company are gone!
Winthrop looks around, realizing that he should probably say something. "Al, you take Perrin and Antonus after them. Hugh and I will remain here with Grizela and Diego to make a fortified base. Find us when you can. If you don't return in twelve hours, we will come in after you," commands Winthrop, sounding remarkably confident.
Al nods and corrals the two junior members of the Company. "Ready? This won't hurt a bit," he soothes.
"How do you know that?" asks Perrin. "You haven't gone through, and no one has come back alive. Maybe it is horribly painful." Perrin looks anxiously over at Antonus for support.
"He's right, you know," agrees Antonus. "It could be horribly painful. Maybe we should wait for them to make it back on their own." Antonus looks over at Perrin, and the two of them nod in agreement, happy to have come to a consensus. Armed with weight of numbers, they turn to face Al.
Al looks up at them from under his beetled brows. "Well, boys, all I can say is that the leader of the Company went through that door, and the man who pulled me out of a demon-worshipper's grasp just asked me to go save him. I don't know if that popping thing is painful or like drinking a fine malt. I do know one thing though. If you aren't coming with me, I am going to guarantee you are both in great pain before I go through that door." Antonus and Perrin look at Al to gauge his seriousness, and Al's knuckles crackle as he grips his axe.
Antonus, Perrin, and Al reach out for the door and with a popping sound disappear.
"Well, this will be interesting," says Winthrop. Diego nods and takes up position in the doorway, trying to cover both directions of the passageway while Grizela watches the three doors.
Otto stumbles a few feet forward as he appears on a rough-hewn floor. Two masonry walls surround him, and an open doorway leads through one of them, but a curved natural cavern wall finishes defining the space. Otto quickly looks about for any foes, but fails to find any. As quietly as his natural stalking skills allow him, he sidles up to the doorway and looks through it.
A small cave is lit with phosphorescent fungi or moss that lines the walls. A large pool of water occupies roughly a third of the space, and the antechamber created by the masonry walls fills another quarter. The rest of the space is completed by a small writing desk with a stool in front of it and a flat wooden platform with several blankets on it and a small open area. At the edge of the platform are two pairs of shoes, one petit and feminine and the other large, boot-like, and studded. A small form stirs on the platform, but before Otto can get a clear view of it, a clanging and thudding sounds startles him from behind.
Otto whips around and nearly impales Raven and Jasper who appear from nowhere in the middle of the antechamber. "Otto!" cries Jasper happily, and he runs forward to hug the big warrior. Otto sighs.
"There's a creature on the bed in there," Otto says, as a female voice reaches out through the air.
"Have you come to torment me some more, Hanuman?" asks a sultry voice. Otto and Jasper wrack their memories for the name, before finally recognizing it as found on the stationary in the Great Tree.
Raven, Otto, and Jasper exit the antechamber and reveal themselves, attempting to reassure the woman in the bed that she is safe. Indeed, a petite elven lass turns haunted eyes on the Company and shrieks as the warriors reveal themselves. It takes several minutes of chaotic shouting waving and hand-ringing before things settle themselves down.
Maya Sunbee tells a tale of domination and abuse by a horrific shapechanger named Hanuman. Hanuman appears to be a powerful warrior and mage who rules the castle. Maya lived in the Oytwood and was captured almost a full year ago. She begins to describe how she was taken from her home when another crashing sound is heard from the antechamber. "Hanuman!" she shrieks and dives back into the bed.
Otto and Raven swing about ready to go into action, but Jasper cries out, "Al!" and runs into the antechamber. The sounds of muffled dwarven cursing can be heard, but eventually Al, Perrin, and Antonus accompany Jasper back out of the antechamber. The three of them are introduced to Maya, who is surprised at the appearance of so many rescuers!
"How many of you are there?" she asks, and Antonus is pleased to answer. He gives a long-winded answer, describing the travels and exploits of the Company since his joining of them. She seems quite interested in their story and bats her eyes at Antonus, who turns an interesting red color while telling his story. Maya seems quite enthralled with Antonus, asking him many questions about himself and the Company's exploits. She applauds his descriptions of the Company's many battles, but seems surprised that others, not Antonus, are the battle mages of the Company. "Can't you tunnel or teleport us out of here?" she asks, and Antonus can only ruefully shake his head.
Otto, Al, and Raven put their heads together and try to figure out what this Hanuman is. They debate and debate, but finally settle on an ogre mage, like those seen earlier with the frost giants. The boots are certainly large enough to be ogre sized, and they are a frightful opponent, as Blackthorn proved long ago. They turn back to Antonus, who is wrapping up his story with the Company disappearing through the door. "So your friends aren't likely to join you here?" asks Maya. Antonus shakes his head in negation. "Too bad," she replies.
Antonus and Perrin gather on the edge of the bed. Antonus draws out his tome of spells and begins flipping through it, searching for a magic that will allow him to find hidden exits. Perrin composes himself and begins to pray, planning on requesting from Phaulkon a similar benison, one that finds trapped or hidden objects. Maya leaves them there and beckons the others over. "They tell me that the rest of your band are unlikely to join you now. Do you also think that the case?" she inquires. Raven and Otto consider and then agree; if Winthrop was following the others through, he would likely have arrived by now. Maya sighs and lets out a healthy breath, her scantily clad bosom heaving. "We'll just have to make do," she exclaims perkily.
Maya raises one hand and rotates it in an odd fashion, her fingers crabbing and poking. "Down! Everyone down!" shouts Otto, seeing that she is summoning some powerful magic, and he whips out Giantslayer. His reflexes are too slow though, and he and the others see her and Jasper move like lightning.
Jasper slams himself to the ground and then bounces up off the ground, using his halberd as a pivot. Maya seems fleetingly discomfited as she gestures and speaks in a high pitch. The cave fills with fire, and only a fluke of chance has Antonus sneezing and bending over his precious book of spells when it does so. The flames burn hot, but the Company is well-prepared for such attacks. Jasper dodges the flames, using Otto's flame-resistant form as a shield, and then flies to the attack again.
Maya and Jasper are hard to track as they flit around the room like hummingbirds, but the warriors are not dissuaded. Raven shoots arrows at the small elf, leading her and predicting her path. Otto and Al, long versed in combat, pincer the quick-moving woman and attempt to strike her down. Perrin swings the banjo off his back, attempting to limn the woman with light to make her more easily seen. His attempts fail, surprisingly, as Perrin is certain he played the notes clearly and cleanly. Antonus, no fool, closes his book of spells, focuses intently on stowing it back in its protective sheath and his backpack, and then crawls towards the doorway back into the antechamber.
Al and Otto's strikes seem to do some, but little damage to the woman. Otto's great blows still buffet her, but less than he expects, and Al's strikes with his axe are mere scratches. Raven's arrows do not even penetrate her skin, merely ricocheting from her body. Only Jasper's halberd seems to easily cut her flesh.
With a squealing roar, Maya transforms into a huge tiger-like beast and leaps across the room, Jasper following. As he runs up to her, she crooks three black claws in his direction and sends a burst of lightning back through him and the whole party. Perrin dances a loose-limbed jig, his banjo erupting in flames as the lightning sears the wood, and collapses in a heap on the ground. The three warriors withstand the lightning less well than they did the flames, but still stand. Jasper ducks, almost too quickly to see, beneath the bolt of lightning and lashes out futilely at the tiger-beast.
The tiger-beast has correctly identified the threat posed by Jasper, and she dodges away from his enchanted halberd. Baring white fangs, she again sends a bolt of lightning through the Company. Jasper's preternatural abilities fail him, as he leaps up in the air to let the bolt pass below him and is struck full in the chest by the bolt. Jasper sails backwards through the air, small arcs of electricity shooting off from his hands. Where once he wore rings, now only small burns circle his digits.
Much to the tiger-beast's consternation, none of the three warriors, all caught in the bolt, fall. Raven grimaces and tosses his bow aside, drawing out Frostbrand, and the three warriors again pin the creature between them. Frostbrand cleaves the tiger-beast as well as Jasper's halberd did, but it is Otto's bludgeoning strength that crushes the creature. Giantslayer barely breaks its skin, but the forces transmitted through the sword's core are bone-breaking.
The tiger-beast flits to the far side of the room and pauses. Its body is broken and beaten with numerous cuts from the Company's weapons. It sees that Otto has healed his wounds by beating on the tiger-beast, and the other two warriors still stand. Another bolt of lightning or ball of fire will likely not slay them, and the tiger-beast's life is imperiled. Rather than raining more fire down on the Company, it somehow heals its own wounds. It is a fatal miscalculation.
The distraction of healing itself is great enough to allow the warriors to close with it. All three of the warriors time their blows carefully. Otto's great cleaves hem it in, while Al's axe keeps it pressed against the wall. Raven, attacking over the top, strikes deep. The tiger-beast collapses to the ground, a mass of broken bones and mangled meat.
"Is it dead yet?" asks Antonus, hiding in the antechamber.
"Yes," yells Raven, as he binds the fast-breathing Jasper's wounds. "Get in here and help Otto revive Perrin. That last lightning bolt barely missed him." Indeed, as Otto and Antonus bind Perrin's wounds, it becomes clear that Jasper's jump and the tiger-beast's resulting high-shot lightning bolt have spared Perrin's life.
As Raven finishes binding Jasper's wounds, Jasper's breathing suddenly slows and becomes more regular. Perrin and Jasper are both restored to consciousness, but left to recover on the edge of the singed bed. Al stands over the mangled tiger-beast, poking it with his axe. The creature appears amazingly dense and muscular, but bleeds a strange, steaming ichor that pools beneath it.
"Let me look at that," says Antonus, bending down to the tiger-beast.
"Oh sure," snipes Al. "Hide in the little room while we get burnt and electrified by Hanuman here and then want its parts. You have been taking lessons from Winthrop. At least he stands up front when people are getting burnt!"
Antonus glares up at the dwarf. "I was guarding the door... in case more showed up," grits out Antonus. "Once I collect the necessary parts for me, I'll share them with Winthrop. Plus, there is absolutely no evidence that the rakshasha, which any reasonably knowledgeable person knows is what this beast is, was Hanuman."
"Even if this rakshasha said 'Hi, i'm Hanuman!' that still wouldn't be sufficient evidence, since we've already established that she's a liar," scoffs Raven, aiming a kick at the tiger-beast's head. "I think that it is very likely Hanuman, because it never made sense that an ogre mage would command such a force. It would not nearly be powerful enough to have priests under its control. Also, the ogre magi we've seen ususally didn't polymorph themselves like the bugbears back at the Great Tree described."
Raven ponders a moment while Antonus grunts and rips out chunks of the tiger-beast's innards. "I think it's certain that Hanuman is a rakshasha. I'll admit that there's a small probability that this was Hanuman's mate and he's still out there, but that seems unlikely to me," muses Raven.
Antonus extracts his arms from deep in the tiger-beast's corpse, a strange grayish organ in one hand. "You guys could teach a course in specious reasoning," mocks Antonus, waggling the ichor-spraying hunk at the rest of the Company, who quickly step back. "While it is not beyond the realm of possiblity that Hanuman is a rakshasha, I cannot believe we just coincidentally chose all the right doors to go through and surprised him or her, alone, in his or her bedroom." Antonus looks at the gloppy mess around him and tosses the deflated sweetbread to the ground in disgust. "That would be like the most anti-climactic thing ever," he gripes. "I guess all the bugbears, now leaderless, will flee into the woods in panic and be finished off by Arden and the elves. Then we go loot all their bodies and get all their powerful magical weapons!"
Antonus heads over to the pool of water, where Otto squats sniffing and rubbing the water between his fingers. He plunges his gory forearms into the water and scrubs much of the ichor from them. Antonus searches for something to wipe his arms on while Otto addresses him. "You better hope you haven't poisoned our only clean water," chastises Otto. Antonus looks momentarily bewildered and then somewhat abashed.
Raven looks over at Jasper and Perrin, eyeing their burnt and battered forms as they regain their energy. "Um, it's not especially difficult to imagine a scenario in which he killed all of us," suggests Raven. "Trade Otto for Winthrop and we would have been in a lot of trouble."
Perrin, finally recovered from his momentary unconsciousness nods his head. "I admit that the battle could have gone much worse if, say, you all lack that resistance to fire," he adds. "After all, Jasper went down even with his now-lost ring. But it is hard to believe that we could have run into Hanuman without meeting a single guard!" Perrin slaps one hand into the other. "The temple doesn't count, since we could have bypassed it," he continues on. "I'll remain skeptical until we get some hard evidence."
Al strides over to the small, singed desk that sits opposite the bed. "The rakshasha may not have been the leader, but is at least a leader," he states confidently. "We'll find out his, hers, its, whatever's name when we open this desk." With that he hefts his axe, ready to bash it open.
Raven grabs hold of the haft and shakes his head. "Let Jasper look at it, and Perrin finish his prayers first," directs Raven. Al nods in agreement.
"I'm sure anything in it will be written on the rakshasha's personalized, monogrammed stationary," quips Antonus as he opens up his tome of magic once more.
Otto sighs at the bickering Company. If only he were alone in the mountains, things would be so much easier. "The temple was full of enemies, and should not be discounted," he asserts. "With all of those acolytes combining their impiety, maybe they could create a mummy. They were nearly able to summon a demon which cannot be much easier. And using the mithril slab probably augmented their powers." Otto walks into the midst of the others. "I agree that there are plenty of powerful opponents left to fight. When we went to the slavers' stockade in the Poor March, we fought Markessa, Blackthorn, Icar, and a shaman," reminisces Otto. "This place doesn't seem quite so large, but it probably has plenty of room to hold other powerful foes. Do not become complacent."
The Company falls silent at Otto's ominous words. Antonus and Perrin both resume their study and prayer so rudely interrupted before. The others all begin searching the cave for a way out, as no one wishes for this cavern to become their tomb.
After a short discussion, the Company chooses to open the doors in the octagonal room rather than climb upwards. While the stairs may lead up into the castle, the Company is somewhat loathe to leave potential enemies behind them, imperiling their retreat. Otto enters into the octagonal room and immediately looks down at the ground, searching for tracks.
The floor of the room is cleaner than might be expected, but Otto has much experience now in tracking indoors as well as out. Faint tracks are visible leading to the stairwell from the door the Company stands before, but also to two other doors, one to the right and one across the room. Additionally, the sign of a large snake is visible in the dust, leading to a door on the left. The snake spoor is faintest and irregular.
The Company chooses to follow the trail to the far door, where Otto succeeds in shouldering it open, splintering the frame again. Another passage, similar to the one they just left, extends out before them. Otto locates the tracks that he wants to follow and, carefully, they walk down the passage. After only a few tens of feet, the passage branches, and the tracks disappear. It is as if the floor has been swept clean of dirt and dust. Only in the corners where the floor and walls meet does any dust remain. Otto's jaw creaks as he grinds his teeth together.
"Straight. We go straight," declares Raven, directing the others forward. The Company slowly moves forward and finds the passage turns to the right and then turns to the right again, with a door on the left wall between the two turns. "Jasper, go up there and see if this is a big square," says Raven. Jasper looks confused and about to open his mouth, so Raven interrupts. "Go down the corridor and always turn to the right and see if you run into Grizela and Perrin." Jasper runs off at a sprint and a minute later is welcomed by the rear guard of the Company. "Next he'll tweet at them," mutters Raven.
Otto, who has been looking at the door, believes that it can easily be opened, and, with a wrench, it is. A rectangular room, the long axis perpendicular to the entryway, lies behind the door. On the far side of the room are three doors equally spaced along the wall, but next to the entryway is a small broom. Otto glares at the broom.
The Company enters the room after Otto frustratingly finds that any tracks have been brushed away by what looks like a small broom. Otto moves over to the right hand door and thrusts his shoulder into it. With a small popping sound, Otto disappears from sight. The rest of the Company stands in shock, or fright, at Otto's disappearance. "Um, Otto, you there?" asks Antonus. No one responds.
"This is not good," says Raven, as he picks up the broom. "Maybe its an illusion or something? Like a deep pit with a ward against sound?" He walks over before the door. "Jasper grab my belt; don't let me fall in," he directs, and then he leans forward and thrusts the broomstick at the door. With a staccato sound like the echos of the earlier popping sound, Raven and Jasper disappear from sight.
"Oh man, now what do we do?" says Antonus, looking somewhat wildly about him. His stomach and innards still feel frozen from the spectre's touch, and all he wants to do is find a place to go to sleep. Now two of the most powerful warriors of the Company are gone!
Winthrop looks around, realizing that he should probably say something. "Al, you take Perrin and Antonus after them. Hugh and I will remain here with Grizela and Diego to make a fortified base. Find us when you can. If you don't return in twelve hours, we will come in after you," commands Winthrop, sounding remarkably confident.
Al nods and corrals the two junior members of the Company. "Ready? This won't hurt a bit," he soothes.
"How do you know that?" asks Perrin. "You haven't gone through, and no one has come back alive. Maybe it is horribly painful." Perrin looks anxiously over at Antonus for support.
"He's right, you know," agrees Antonus. "It could be horribly painful. Maybe we should wait for them to make it back on their own." Antonus looks over at Perrin, and the two of them nod in agreement, happy to have come to a consensus. Armed with weight of numbers, they turn to face Al.
Al looks up at them from under his beetled brows. "Well, boys, all I can say is that the leader of the Company went through that door, and the man who pulled me out of a demon-worshipper's grasp just asked me to go save him. I don't know if that popping thing is painful or like drinking a fine malt. I do know one thing though. If you aren't coming with me, I am going to guarantee you are both in great pain before I go through that door." Antonus and Perrin look at Al to gauge his seriousness, and Al's knuckles crackle as he grips his axe.
Antonus, Perrin, and Al reach out for the door and with a popping sound disappear.
"Well, this will be interesting," says Winthrop. Diego nods and takes up position in the doorway, trying to cover both directions of the passageway while Grizela watches the three doors.
Otto stumbles a few feet forward as he appears on a rough-hewn floor. Two masonry walls surround him, and an open doorway leads through one of them, but a curved natural cavern wall finishes defining the space. Otto quickly looks about for any foes, but fails to find any. As quietly as his natural stalking skills allow him, he sidles up to the doorway and looks through it.
A small cave is lit with phosphorescent fungi or moss that lines the walls. A large pool of water occupies roughly a third of the space, and the antechamber created by the masonry walls fills another quarter. The rest of the space is completed by a small writing desk with a stool in front of it and a flat wooden platform with several blankets on it and a small open area. At the edge of the platform are two pairs of shoes, one petit and feminine and the other large, boot-like, and studded. A small form stirs on the platform, but before Otto can get a clear view of it, a clanging and thudding sounds startles him from behind.
Otto whips around and nearly impales Raven and Jasper who appear from nowhere in the middle of the antechamber. "Otto!" cries Jasper happily, and he runs forward to hug the big warrior. Otto sighs.
"There's a creature on the bed in there," Otto says, as a female voice reaches out through the air.
"Have you come to torment me some more, Hanuman?" asks a sultry voice. Otto and Jasper wrack their memories for the name, before finally recognizing it as found on the stationary in the Great Tree.
Raven, Otto, and Jasper exit the antechamber and reveal themselves, attempting to reassure the woman in the bed that she is safe. Indeed, a petite elven lass turns haunted eyes on the Company and shrieks as the warriors reveal themselves. It takes several minutes of chaotic shouting waving and hand-ringing before things settle themselves down.
Maya Sunbee tells a tale of domination and abuse by a horrific shapechanger named Hanuman. Hanuman appears to be a powerful warrior and mage who rules the castle. Maya lived in the Oytwood and was captured almost a full year ago. She begins to describe how she was taken from her home when another crashing sound is heard from the antechamber. "Hanuman!" she shrieks and dives back into the bed.
Otto and Raven swing about ready to go into action, but Jasper cries out, "Al!" and runs into the antechamber. The sounds of muffled dwarven cursing can be heard, but eventually Al, Perrin, and Antonus accompany Jasper back out of the antechamber. The three of them are introduced to Maya, who is surprised at the appearance of so many rescuers!
"How many of you are there?" she asks, and Antonus is pleased to answer. He gives a long-winded answer, describing the travels and exploits of the Company since his joining of them. She seems quite interested in their story and bats her eyes at Antonus, who turns an interesting red color while telling his story. Maya seems quite enthralled with Antonus, asking him many questions about himself and the Company's exploits. She applauds his descriptions of the Company's many battles, but seems surprised that others, not Antonus, are the battle mages of the Company. "Can't you tunnel or teleport us out of here?" she asks, and Antonus can only ruefully shake his head.
Otto, Al, and Raven put their heads together and try to figure out what this Hanuman is. They debate and debate, but finally settle on an ogre mage, like those seen earlier with the frost giants. The boots are certainly large enough to be ogre sized, and they are a frightful opponent, as Blackthorn proved long ago. They turn back to Antonus, who is wrapping up his story with the Company disappearing through the door. "So your friends aren't likely to join you here?" asks Maya. Antonus shakes his head in negation. "Too bad," she replies.
Antonus and Perrin gather on the edge of the bed. Antonus draws out his tome of spells and begins flipping through it, searching for a magic that will allow him to find hidden exits. Perrin composes himself and begins to pray, planning on requesting from Phaulkon a similar benison, one that finds trapped or hidden objects. Maya leaves them there and beckons the others over. "They tell me that the rest of your band are unlikely to join you now. Do you also think that the case?" she inquires. Raven and Otto consider and then agree; if Winthrop was following the others through, he would likely have arrived by now. Maya sighs and lets out a healthy breath, her scantily clad bosom heaving. "We'll just have to make do," she exclaims perkily.
Maya raises one hand and rotates it in an odd fashion, her fingers crabbing and poking. "Down! Everyone down!" shouts Otto, seeing that she is summoning some powerful magic, and he whips out Giantslayer. His reflexes are too slow though, and he and the others see her and Jasper move like lightning.
Jasper slams himself to the ground and then bounces up off the ground, using his halberd as a pivot. Maya seems fleetingly discomfited as she gestures and speaks in a high pitch. The cave fills with fire, and only a fluke of chance has Antonus sneezing and bending over his precious book of spells when it does so. The flames burn hot, but the Company is well-prepared for such attacks. Jasper dodges the flames, using Otto's flame-resistant form as a shield, and then flies to the attack again.
Maya and Jasper are hard to track as they flit around the room like hummingbirds, but the warriors are not dissuaded. Raven shoots arrows at the small elf, leading her and predicting her path. Otto and Al, long versed in combat, pincer the quick-moving woman and attempt to strike her down. Perrin swings the banjo off his back, attempting to limn the woman with light to make her more easily seen. His attempts fail, surprisingly, as Perrin is certain he played the notes clearly and cleanly. Antonus, no fool, closes his book of spells, focuses intently on stowing it back in its protective sheath and his backpack, and then crawls towards the doorway back into the antechamber.
Al and Otto's strikes seem to do some, but little damage to the woman. Otto's great blows still buffet her, but less than he expects, and Al's strikes with his axe are mere scratches. Raven's arrows do not even penetrate her skin, merely ricocheting from her body. Only Jasper's halberd seems to easily cut her flesh.
With a squealing roar, Maya transforms into a huge tiger-like beast and leaps across the room, Jasper following. As he runs up to her, she crooks three black claws in his direction and sends a burst of lightning back through him and the whole party. Perrin dances a loose-limbed jig, his banjo erupting in flames as the lightning sears the wood, and collapses in a heap on the ground. The three warriors withstand the lightning less well than they did the flames, but still stand. Jasper ducks, almost too quickly to see, beneath the bolt of lightning and lashes out futilely at the tiger-beast.
The tiger-beast has correctly identified the threat posed by Jasper, and she dodges away from his enchanted halberd. Baring white fangs, she again sends a bolt of lightning through the Company. Jasper's preternatural abilities fail him, as he leaps up in the air to let the bolt pass below him and is struck full in the chest by the bolt. Jasper sails backwards through the air, small arcs of electricity shooting off from his hands. Where once he wore rings, now only small burns circle his digits.
Much to the tiger-beast's consternation, none of the three warriors, all caught in the bolt, fall. Raven grimaces and tosses his bow aside, drawing out Frostbrand, and the three warriors again pin the creature between them. Frostbrand cleaves the tiger-beast as well as Jasper's halberd did, but it is Otto's bludgeoning strength that crushes the creature. Giantslayer barely breaks its skin, but the forces transmitted through the sword's core are bone-breaking.
The tiger-beast flits to the far side of the room and pauses. Its body is broken and beaten with numerous cuts from the Company's weapons. It sees that Otto has healed his wounds by beating on the tiger-beast, and the other two warriors still stand. Another bolt of lightning or ball of fire will likely not slay them, and the tiger-beast's life is imperiled. Rather than raining more fire down on the Company, it somehow heals its own wounds. It is a fatal miscalculation.
The distraction of healing itself is great enough to allow the warriors to close with it. All three of the warriors time their blows carefully. Otto's great cleaves hem it in, while Al's axe keeps it pressed against the wall. Raven, attacking over the top, strikes deep. The tiger-beast collapses to the ground, a mass of broken bones and mangled meat.
"Is it dead yet?" asks Antonus, hiding in the antechamber.
"Yes," yells Raven, as he binds the fast-breathing Jasper's wounds. "Get in here and help Otto revive Perrin. That last lightning bolt barely missed him." Indeed, as Otto and Antonus bind Perrin's wounds, it becomes clear that Jasper's jump and the tiger-beast's resulting high-shot lightning bolt have spared Perrin's life.
As Raven finishes binding Jasper's wounds, Jasper's breathing suddenly slows and becomes more regular. Perrin and Jasper are both restored to consciousness, but left to recover on the edge of the singed bed. Al stands over the mangled tiger-beast, poking it with his axe. The creature appears amazingly dense and muscular, but bleeds a strange, steaming ichor that pools beneath it.
"Let me look at that," says Antonus, bending down to the tiger-beast.
"Oh sure," snipes Al. "Hide in the little room while we get burnt and electrified by Hanuman here and then want its parts. You have been taking lessons from Winthrop. At least he stands up front when people are getting burnt!"
Antonus glares up at the dwarf. "I was guarding the door... in case more showed up," grits out Antonus. "Once I collect the necessary parts for me, I'll share them with Winthrop. Plus, there is absolutely no evidence that the rakshasha, which any reasonably knowledgeable person knows is what this beast is, was Hanuman."
"Even if this rakshasha said 'Hi, i'm Hanuman!' that still wouldn't be sufficient evidence, since we've already established that she's a liar," scoffs Raven, aiming a kick at the tiger-beast's head. "I think that it is very likely Hanuman, because it never made sense that an ogre mage would command such a force. It would not nearly be powerful enough to have priests under its control. Also, the ogre magi we've seen ususally didn't polymorph themselves like the bugbears back at the Great Tree described."
Raven ponders a moment while Antonus grunts and rips out chunks of the tiger-beast's innards. "I think it's certain that Hanuman is a rakshasha. I'll admit that there's a small probability that this was Hanuman's mate and he's still out there, but that seems unlikely to me," muses Raven.
Antonus extracts his arms from deep in the tiger-beast's corpse, a strange grayish organ in one hand. "You guys could teach a course in specious reasoning," mocks Antonus, waggling the ichor-spraying hunk at the rest of the Company, who quickly step back. "While it is not beyond the realm of possiblity that Hanuman is a rakshasha, I cannot believe we just coincidentally chose all the right doors to go through and surprised him or her, alone, in his or her bedroom." Antonus looks at the gloppy mess around him and tosses the deflated sweetbread to the ground in disgust. "That would be like the most anti-climactic thing ever," he gripes. "I guess all the bugbears, now leaderless, will flee into the woods in panic and be finished off by Arden and the elves. Then we go loot all their bodies and get all their powerful magical weapons!"
Antonus heads over to the pool of water, where Otto squats sniffing and rubbing the water between his fingers. He plunges his gory forearms into the water and scrubs much of the ichor from them. Antonus searches for something to wipe his arms on while Otto addresses him. "You better hope you haven't poisoned our only clean water," chastises Otto. Antonus looks momentarily bewildered and then somewhat abashed.
Raven looks over at Jasper and Perrin, eyeing their burnt and battered forms as they regain their energy. "Um, it's not especially difficult to imagine a scenario in which he killed all of us," suggests Raven. "Trade Otto for Winthrop and we would have been in a lot of trouble."
Perrin, finally recovered from his momentary unconsciousness nods his head. "I admit that the battle could have gone much worse if, say, you all lack that resistance to fire," he adds. "After all, Jasper went down even with his now-lost ring. But it is hard to believe that we could have run into Hanuman without meeting a single guard!" Perrin slaps one hand into the other. "The temple doesn't count, since we could have bypassed it," he continues on. "I'll remain skeptical until we get some hard evidence."
Al strides over to the small, singed desk that sits opposite the bed. "The rakshasha may not have been the leader, but is at least a leader," he states confidently. "We'll find out his, hers, its, whatever's name when we open this desk." With that he hefts his axe, ready to bash it open.
Raven grabs hold of the haft and shakes his head. "Let Jasper look at it, and Perrin finish his prayers first," directs Raven. Al nods in agreement.
"I'm sure anything in it will be written on the rakshasha's personalized, monogrammed stationary," quips Antonus as he opens up his tome of magic once more.
Otto sighs at the bickering Company. If only he were alone in the mountains, things would be so much easier. "The temple was full of enemies, and should not be discounted," he asserts. "With all of those acolytes combining their impiety, maybe they could create a mummy. They were nearly able to summon a demon which cannot be much easier. And using the mithril slab probably augmented their powers." Otto walks into the midst of the others. "I agree that there are plenty of powerful opponents left to fight. When we went to the slavers' stockade in the Poor March, we fought Markessa, Blackthorn, Icar, and a shaman," reminisces Otto. "This place doesn't seem quite so large, but it probably has plenty of room to hold other powerful foes. Do not become complacent."
The Company falls silent at Otto's ominous words. Antonus and Perrin both resume their study and prayer so rudely interrupted before. The others all begin searching the cave for a way out, as no one wishes for this cavern to become their tomb.
