Everyone stands in stunned silence as they process what just happened. The food that Hung brought to them barely eaten and growing cold while Sai helps Fawna to a seat at the small table in the quaint room. Everyone is affected in their own way as they learn new things of the old past, nothing how it is taught in any school, nothing that can be found in any books; and now they’ve actually witnessed the embodiment of a Goddess! After reading the prophecy earlier, it can no longer be denied that they play a part in it. The room is still and silent, it’s about 6:30pm. Gia is lost in thought, but everyone else notices that the scaly red skin issue on Malkey’s knuckles has grown substantially after that experience. Cheato, feeling a bit overwhelmed, quietly walks out of Hung and Malkey’s room and heads to his own room for some processing.
“Are you guys ok?” Sai addresses Fawna and Malkey. She shifts uncomfortably in their blank stares then stammers looking at Malkey, “What’s going on with your hands? I’ve noticed it for a while, you even tried that special ointment on your hands and elbows.”
“Eczema, I’ve been saying that!” Malkey exclaims.
“Are you sure?” she presses.
“No! I’m not sure of anything I just had shit coming out of my eyes! I don’t know nothing!” He shouts.
Treading lightly, noticing that her friend seems very guarded about this, she delicately asks, “I mean, is there any chance that maybe there’s some dragon heritage?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Malkey shrugs.
“But we all saw what you saw… What we guys saw through YOUR eyes, appeared above,” she says pointing to the ceiling where the vision was projected.
“All I know is some freaky shit’s been going down and I don’t know what you gave us because that was really trippy,” he says accusingly.
“OK fine, what did you see then?” Sai crosses her arms and looks down at him. “Because I’m pretty sure we saw what you saw.”
“So then what did it look like from your end?” he asks quizzically. Sai describes the vision that was projected from Fawna and Malkey’s eyes.
“All I can say friend, is welcome to the club,” Hung states.
“Oh, so I looked like you guys do when you have your visions and kind of pause and zone out? So you saw my ‘O’ face,” Malkey tries to brush them off and make light of the situation.
“The gnome that we saw with the gnome baby we saw, you’re trying to tell me that you don’t know them at all? I’m seeing some family resemblance here,” Sai shrugs and shakes her head.
Malkey decides to finally level with them, “What I saw is what I think is my grandfather as a baby. What that means, I don’t know! I don’t know if it’s true, or if it’s me getting high on some moldy bread or something.”
“Well, there’s this whole prophecy about half-blood, I’m wondering if maybe the dragon rider gnome might have been a bit closer with their dragon than … I mean if that’s your grandfather...”
“It’s possible,” Malkey shrugs. “Or it could be a lie, Maybe Cheato is the half-blood and we don’t know it.”
“What’s on your hands?” she asks again, trying to get him to be accountable.
“Fingers, skin…” he starts
Sai gets frustrated, “NO, the scales! Those look like dragon scales!”
“Or eczema,” He says again.
“Or dragon scales!” She proclaims. “I don’t know, G?”
“I agree,” Gia nods.
“Well unless you have a degree in medicine, we don’t know,” he chides.
“Well, I’m asking Gia,” Sai snaps back at Malkey.
“Has it been getting worse?” Gia asks him looking closer at his hands.
He covers them the best he can with his sleeves and answers, “I don’t know, I feel pretty good.”
Fawna takes a moment, looking at Malkey’s hand. She then takes out the emerald dragon scale necklace and holds it up comparing it with his patches of red skin which look like they have a sheen over them, shiny, not opaque; a lot like this necklace. “You know, if they were green, they’d look a lot like this,” she points out and everyone looks and sees that indeed they look similar.
Malkey snatches the necklace and holds it up close to his knuckles. They do indeed look similar though his are smaller; 'but it’s not the size that matters,' he thinks to himself. He looks over at Fawna and nods before placing the necklace back into his pocket and sits quietly.
“It’s probably nothing bad,” Hung reassures him. “Nothing bad happened to me, nothing bad happened to Sai.”
“No but, it’s definitely a lot of unknowns,” Sai sighs.
“I guess we can only observe,” Gia nods.
Fawna continues to question, “Malkey how well do you know your family?”
“I know my family well… I thought. Apparently proximity doesn’t mean knowing,” he tells her.
“Did you ever hear about your grandfathers parents?” Fawna continues.
“No,” he responds. “We never really talked about it.”
“How much do you like fire?” she asks.
“It’s alright, it’s what I do apparently,” he shrugs. “Cuz this old mans hot!”
Trying to deflect with humor, he quickly licks his finger and then sticks in on his rear and makes a sizzling sound, “Tssss, Yeah I am! Feel that burn!” He looks over at Gia, “Yeah, you know what I’m talking about!”
She giggles and blushes, “Yeah, I do.”
“I think it’s safe to say that we know who the other half-blood is now,” Fawna states.
“Yeah, it’s Cheato!” Malkey offers.
“Well, the other half-blood will probably get another artifact like the spear and the sword. Are you sure you wouldn’t want that?”
“Are you trying to cajole me into wanting some gear to be a half-blood? Is that where we’re going with this?” he looks suspiciously at Sai.
“I’m just mentioning how this would go according to the prophecy. It’s the prophecy saying it, not me.” She holds her hands up.
“Can you imagine him with one of these things? Come on,” Hung side eyes Sai.
“You know what, you’re right; he can’t handle it,” Sai says matter-of-factly. “You’re right you’re right. You are 100% right Malkey, we’ll just give it to Cheato. He’s clearly the other half-blood.”
At that moment, Cheato enters the room and looks around at them all before continuing, “If we’re done joking around, we have serious things to do. I don’t know if we’re all aware of the time constraint that we’re on.”
“We can’t do much without money,” Sai points out.
“Whoa, simmer down bud, I understand you’re trying to pretend to be an adult but we’re all good here,” Malkey tells him.
“OK, We’re not,” Cheato carries on ignoring Malkey's snark. “We need to go to this tomb. We need more information, and I don’t want to hear anything about this cat. You eat meat so I don’t want to hear it.”
“I wasn't talking about the cat, I was merely mentioning our lack of liquidity. Prophecies sound expensive if we’re expected to go hither and thither,” Sai responds.
“Bottom line is, we’re not actively trying to kill the cat,” Malkey says as he takes out his knife and starts brandishing it towards the animal while Sai covers where she thinks the eyes of the egg would be, “There will be none of this,” he continues to feign stabbing the creature through the cage.
Fawna feels Sai’s true concern for the little one in the egg, but then Malkey walks over and in teasing Sai covers where the eggs ears would be. Fawna feels Malkey oozing with sarcasm but the egg is happy to have him near and she feels a bit of movement from within its shell. Fawna smiles and laughs to herself.
“What’s the date?” Hung asks. “I thought we had plenty of time and now you’re saying we’re running out?”
“To get into the crypt, and in general,” Cheato looks at him seriously. “We’re talking about the end of the world with this prophecy.”
“It’s always going to feel like we’re running out of time, it’s the end of the world, we got some time. But to get to the tomb, we should probably skeedaddle,” Malkey says as he starts walking towards the door.
'The sun hasn’t set all the way yet, it’s about 7:30pm. Perhaps they should wait until nightfall,' Cheato wonders before saying out loud, “I don’t want to go before nightfall, we’re being hunted.”
Malkey pauses in the doorway, “We’ll stick to the shadows. If someone or something is there after it gets dark, I want to be there before they get there, so before it gets dark.”
“So you’re saying you want to scout for us?” Hung asks.
“I’ll go first and go ahead. I’ll be stealthy and stick to alleyways. Who’s coming with me?” Malkey looks around.
“Hold on, we’re now a group. We’re now a circle of sorts. We should make sure everybody is on the same thought process,” Hung wisely suggests.
“If we go in pairs, it will draw less attention to us,” Cheato nods and crinkles his nose as he looks around the room at the motley crew and thinks about who should be who’s buddy.
“Why don’t you and I go, then Fawna and Sai go, then the last 2 when it’s getting really dark?” Malkey suggests before Cheato can say anything.
Everyone seems in agreeance as Cheato and Malkey head to the graveyard making sure to stick to the alleyways and shadows along the way. They silently make it to the graveyard unseen and enter through the main wrought iron gates with a small creak. Malkey starts heading towards the mausoleum, but Cheato stops him and they decide to check out the tunnel entrance that they told him about. Malkey easily finds it hidden behind a bush and is impressed at how well it’s hidden by just a bit of shrubbery. Cheato shines the lantern of revealing down the tunnel in case there is a hidden enemy within but finds nothing. Malkey then has Nutbag check out the tunnel and room inside, finding it empty. Hopefully they’ll get the drop on the Tharizdun cult (they assume from the meeting notes Sai had found) that had a trapped cat and was chanting and digging tunnels in mausoleums; to what purpose; they have no idea. Cheato wisely advises that this would be where they would be entering so ultimately, they decide to hide behind the epitaphs and monuments of the dead that are within view of the tunnel entrance and Malkey sets Nutbag up at the main entrance of the cemetery to help the others and guide them to their hiding spot. While Malkey is setting up Nutbag, Cheato shakes his arm and out of his sleeve pops Mr. Mugwuggles the 18th which he sends into the crypt to hide quietly within.
Fawna and Sai wait about 30 minutes after Cheato and Malkey leaves and as the sun sinks even lower in the sky. Sai looks at the sky then at Fawna, and offers to carry the cat but Fawna holds tight. “How well can you see at night?” Sai asks her.
“Maybe better than you can,” Fawna answers her.
“You’d be surprised the darkness I can see through,” Sai stammers out as she walks into the sunset with Fawna.
Fawna quickly takes some ashes out of a side pouch and sprinkles it on their shoes for a bit of extra stealth casting pass without trace. They notice the streets are starting to empty but nobody takes any notice of them at all. They easily make it to the graveyard unseen without making a single track behind them. They approach the main gate and to their surprise, Nutbag pops up in front of them flying toward them and then flying away as if to ask them to follow, which indeed they do. “Malkey, Cheato, are you here?” Sai whispers loudly.
“Yeah, I’m literally waving at you, just turn to your right,” Cheato loudly whispers back. Sai turns and sees them and they all gather as he lets them in on the current plan. “Alright so this is the entrance that they’re going to come in through because they dug this entrance out very clearly. We need to watch this area but we also need to watch that they’re not gonna show up right behind us.” Sai and Fawna nod quietly and they all wait for Gia and Hung while staying alert and on watch both of the hole and behind them at the cemetery walls (except Cheato who is reading the journal to studiously try and gain more information for the task at hand).
“Should we also have someone watch the front door of the mausoleum in case they try to exit through there?” Sai suggests.
“They can’t,” Cheato responds reminding them that from what they had told him earlier, they couldn’t get into the main chamber because the lock on the crypt had prevented them.
After another 30 minutes passes from when Fawna and Sai left, Hung and Gia get ready. Gia pulls a bit of dried carrot out of her pouch and with a move of her hand, a mumble under her breath she takes a nibble of it, casting Darkvision on herself to help her see better in the now darkness of night. Ruidis in its full state casting a red filter on everything since Catha is in its new phase. They also move through the shadows of the now quiet and practically empty streets easily unseen. They get to the gates and just like Fawna and Sai, Nutbag is there to greet them and leads them to the others.
Sai sees her friends turn the corner of the mausoleum and tosses a handful of pebbles so as to give away their position. “What was that?” Gia whispers, but as she turns to where the pebbles came from she can see it’s her friends.
“Wow, what a welcoming committee,” Hung shakes his head but then he sees Gia in the moonlight and is in awe of how her scales glisten making him forget about being hit by small stones.
“I’m glad everyone made it,” Gia whispers and they are filled in on the current plan.
“Hmm,” Cheato starts. “We could try to pincer them, if half of us go down into that hole, and the other half stays here, we wait for them to start going down the hole we can catch them in the middle and put them at a disadvantage.”
“We’d have to keep it pretty balanced so we have some magic and some who can take a couple hits on either side,” Sai nods.
“Yeah. Myself, Hung, Gia,” Cheato starts but then checks himself looking at the size of the people he just named to go into the cramped tunnel. “No, Malkey, Fawna and Sai go inside.”
“We might want to do this like now because we don’t know when they’re going to show up for this shindig,” Malkey points out. Right at that moment, black figures are spotted making their way over the south wall, and towards the hidden entrance tunnel to the crypt.
“Wait, I’m overthinking this, let them go in the hole, there’s only one way in and one way out for them, right?” Cheato whispers quietly as one by one the cultists file into the hole while one of the cloaked members stands watch outside until everyone is in and then follows behind them.
Hung counts about 11 cloaked figures in total.
“Do we want to rush the front door? Hung has the key,” Malkey
“Nah, just wait until they all go in. They have no way out. We have the control,” Cheato smiles, then his eyes grow opaque and he is deafened as he looks to see what’s happening inside through the eyes of Mr. Mugwuggles. Cheato sees that the cloaked figures have somehow opened the door to the main chamber and are filing through with another guard at the crypt door. He disconnects from the ferret and looks at his friends, “We fucked this up. Apparently they got the key or something. They got open that door down there.”
“Shit, well let’s rush the front door and some through here. We can still pincer them, just not the way we thought,” Malkey offers.
“I’ve got this. They’re not in that room, let’s just go lock that door and we all go through the front. If they try and run they’re going to run into a locked door.”
“Ok, so who’s going in to lock the door, I mean I can do it but…” Malkey starts. At first they suggest Hung because he’s the fastest.
“Um,” Fawna pipes up and takes a few deep breaths before resuming. “I could do it. I mean, I’m not a very good combatant so my concern is if we just lock it and all go through the front then they can still leave through here. If they have a key, they can just unlock it again. How about this, I go into the tunnel, you guys go around front, I lock the door. You can then go right in and if they try to come back through this door, I can make it a problem for them.”
From inside they can’t make out the words, but they start to hear someone speaking angrily and sounds of something being sought and begin to move. Fawna gets the crypt key from Hung and heads into the tunnel pushing the cat in the birdcage in front of her to get into position behind the crypt door.
Malkey whispers down the tunnel, “OK, we’re going to go to the front door and count to 20 before we enter so you know when things are going to start to get hairy.” Then he, Sai, Hung, Gia and Cheato start making their way to the front entrance of the mausoleum.
They reach the front steps and Hung and Sai take the front and Cheato advises that they should hold back a bit for non-lethal damage so they can get some questions answered, they nod in agreeance and take their places each with a hand on the door, ready for go. “Yeah, we should keep at least one alive,” Malkey nods.
“When we get in there, spread out, hit ‘em hard; hit ‘em fast,” Cheato advises as he grips his staff. The angry shrill voice now louder and clearly feminine on the other side of the door. Definitely no chanting. He pops into Mr. Mugwuggles and signals to Fawna that they’re about to go in.
Fawna sees and slowly and quietly locks the crypt door and backs up towards the tunnel entrance. Cheato comes back into his body and there’s been a change of plans. Now Sai and Hung are going to whip open the doors and the casters are going to unleash a barrage of heavy ranged spells to get things started, then they’ll all run in. Gia prepares magnify gravity, Malkey and Cheato prepare scorching ray; malkey targeting three, and Cheato going after the yelling woman.
They fling open the door, the red moonlight shining through the stained glass dome mixing with the magical blue flames of the sconces causing strange purple shadows. They immediately release their prepared spells as they run into the room and spread out, Hung and Sai right behind them ready for melee. Gia takes the left side and magnifies the gravity around the targets. They scream in pain as they are being crushed and can barely move. Malkey unleashes scorching ray on the right side and targets 3 cloaked figures hitting 2 of them, one solidly square in the back. Cheato aims his scorching rays at the sound of the woman landing 2 successfully as she screams and then laughs maniacally, “You think you could best me?” Now all the cloaked figures are turn to face the newcomers in anger, what can be seen of their faces look menacing and twisted as they sneer and smile in the shadows of the blue torchlight and red moonlight. Fawna hearing that things are starting to go down prepares ray of frost in case someone comes through the crypt door. Cheato stands tall and smiles back at her and raises his gloved fire hand and beneath the woman a bonfire ignites but has no effect except making her look badass as she laughs at them from within the flames. Her eyes move over to Sai and her smile widens, “My, don’t you look like you could be handy.” Sai stares her down and feels an effect wash over her like water off a duck’s back, no effect which angers the woman greatly as she moves out of the flames of the bonfire. Sai calls out her echo and it attacks the closest cultist with the power of Silken Serenity slashing through the robes like butter and through the ethereal form of the echo everyone sees the spinal cord of the cultist as the entrails start spilling onto the floor as he screams in agony and holds his stomach together in shock. Malkey takes aim again and lets loose a witchbolt but using the fire within him, he twins it causing two bolts to erupt from the sky targeting the same 2 that he had hit before striking true. Nutbag joins the frey and spits his poison at a lightning singed cultist causing him to drop to his knees. Gia moves to the left corner and stays as far away as she can calling up magic missile and striking three of the cultists that were affected by the increased gravity. Hung rushes in and runs through Sais echo as Nalthak takes flight around the room. Taking out his spear he thrusts it, but misses. He growls and flexes holding up his spear causing spectral arms to burst from his back surprising the cultists as the arms hit them with great force, causing one to find death and bringing another to the brink. In retalliation, the cultists reach the party (except for the ones slowed by Gia’s crushing gravity spell) and lash out but they’re unable to pin Malkey down as he bobs and weaves through their attacks. Sai’s echo gets targeted and attacked by the cultists around it and unfortunately once it’s hit it dissipates and is no more. They then target Hung and he feels their scimitars bite into his flesh. From inside the McRae crypt, Fawna kneels down and looks through the keyhole and sees a bit of the goings on in the main room. She picks a spot on the floor right behind one of the cultists and an ethereal unicorn takes shape and looms over them. The battle wages on hit for hit, spells flying everywhere, a spike growth from Fawna erupting under the cultist fanatic and her minions, Cheato mocking the woman as he sends forth more flames. Hung holding his own but needing some help gets healed by the unicorn giving him strength to take down 2 more cultists. Sai striking through them with Silken Serenity, Gia almost cornered but fending off attacks with her quarterstaff and they take down 2 more. Malkey and Nutbag tag team and take down another one. Before long, all the cultists and their leader lay still.
“Oh no, we were supposed to keep one alive!” someone shouts. Malkey has Nutbag do a bit of healing on what they assume to be the leader of the cult after Sai ties her up with her rope. Her eyes snap open and she awakens with a gasp...
Hung is relieved they DID leave one alive. ish.
Hehe
You should write novels.