Move 158: More Time Passing
The Blue Garl Cavern--3 Eleint 1374 DRWith the situation temporarily diffused and no one going anywhere for the time being, everyone settled down to attempt to be a little more quiet so the sleeping mage and priest would have a shot of actually getting some sleep. Blacky, who hadn't had enough sleep, and Daelen, who hadn't had any, also rested. After some time, Arachne had meditated enough to do more healing and, in a remarkably adept attempt at doing such, managed to heal herself completely and still heal Echo some.
"Talk about a waste of a good effort," the gnome muttered to herself, even while looking the pleased picture of ragged good health.
Eventually, Aloysius and Renn woke up, rested enough to work spells again. The reek of the zombie bodies in the cavern had permeated into the cabin, letting everyone know that they were still there. It also served as a reminder that, although it was cool in the mines, the bodies of their fallen comrades would need to be dealt with, by pyre or by burial, before an already ugly task turned much uglier.
Aloysius awakened and guardedly sat up on he cot. He seemed quite unsteady as he rubbed his face. Trying to make as little noise as possible for those who might still be trying to rest, he took some rations out of his pack and washed them down with some water from his waterskin. His skin was pale and his neck and right arm were encrusted with dried blood.
He then stood up, grimmacing, and slowly walked over to the pile of things that had been collected from those defeated earlier. After giving the pile a rather disinterested inspection, he went back to his cot and proceeded to read through his spell book.
After Aloysius studied his spell book for a while, he closed it and put it back into his pack.
He stood up and weakly walked over to Etienne's body. He knelt over it for a moment, leaning down and apparently speaking quietly to the corpse. He then returned to the cot and pulled another book from his pack and began writing in it.
"What would you like me to do now?" Arachne asked. "More healing? I guess Aloysius or Renn would be next. Or go scout for prisoners? I think I can believably promise to try not to start any fights while I'm trying to find them. Or go look for lost dogs? If I do a little more healing, I hope you'd then allow me time to rest again before we went anywhere. Even though I expect that everyone here is heartily sick of just sitting around this place. What had me disgusted with myself was that I tagged along on our coming into this cavern and that really awful fight while I was already injured and exhausted. I think it's as well that Raunchy paralyzed me, since I would probably have gotten killed quickly if I'd been able to move and attract somebody's attention. Frozen and waiting to get put out of my misery, I had lots of time to regret coming down that ladder. Now, I'm glad I did, of course. I was lucky and survived (others were unlucky and didn't); and I've managed to be useful in the aftermath." She sighed. "The point of all that is that it's very humiliating, when you're a lousy fighter, if a fight breaks out and you're already too exhausted to do anything else but try to stick your knife into a much more capable foe. Dangerous, too." She shook her head. "So, are we still the Knights Hospitaller?"
Aloysius remained reclined on the cot, staring up at the ceiling of the cabin.
Aloysius finally sat up on the cot once more, his face an expressionless mask.
"Let us end this," he said. "If Ranchefus remains nearby, we must defeat him once and for all. If he is not, we must know if any of his captives are in this cavern. Once our wounds are attended, to the extent possible, we must go forth and complete our assay of this level."
He stood up and slung his pack over his shoulder. While the effort made him wobble unsteadily on his feet, he appeared ready to move on.
No he didn't. He appeared as though he _wanted_ to move on.
"Where do you think you're going?" Arachne asked him mildly. "An assay of this level may be a good and needful thing for somebody to do," she continued, going over to him, "but you're not that somebody. Please, Aloysius: Put down the pack and lie down -- carefully! I realize that you've slept long and have studied your magicks and now feel ready to pursue a little righteous vengeance. I'd love to pursue a little righteous vengeance too -- or even a lot of it. But I'd rather not have to add you to my list of the honored dead. Aloysius, you're a mess. We've put bandaging on you, but I don't think we've done anything else yet. If you move incautiously -- or do anything remotely violent (like some of your more vigorous spell gestures) -- I fear you'll start bleeding again. And then, there's fever. Those zombies are putrid and I'd expect pretty much the same from their masters. You _will_ start to burn unless Renn or I does something more about your injuries." She put out her hands to guide him back to his cot.
Aloysius allowed his pack to slide back to the floor before he sat back down on the cot. "Stargazer had the chance to stop him, small one," he said quietly. "The red-haired man. Had I but invoked a different incantation, he would have been captured, and Etienne would yet live." The mage began to tremble before placing his face in his hands.
"Zond and Pug and Strongbow and the gypsy and Falgout and Cethyran and . . .Etienne. All . . .gone. And naught could I do to prevent this. I am no wizard. I am but a simple fool who brings death to those around him."
He looked up at the gnome, his eyes filled with hurt and frustration. "I can not simply sit here doing nothing whilst their souls cry for justice." Fat tears began rolling down his cheeks.
"But I know not what to do."
"Ah, justice... A difficult thing, that." Arachne allowed the decision-point as to what she should do to flow by. She carefully opened Aloysius's dressings to hunt for swelling, pus, rash, and other bad things she could fix.
Aloysius' eyes darkened. "I want him to feel like we feel, Arachne. I want him to know misery and grief, and then I want him to die. I want him to die like a pox-infested cur, slowly and in agony. He fancies himself a bringer of strife? Then let him know strife first hand."
Arachne stared at the wizard, fingering his flesh absently. "Is _that_ how you feel?" she whispered. "I wonder if he isn't winning already."
"What, in this case, would amount to justice? And the crying for it of our dead comrades," the gnome murmured, continuing to examine the wizard, "is it a unison call or perhaps a harmony of not-quite-identical demands? If the dead are anything like the living, the cries are likely to be enlivened by a lot of dissonances. I'd hardly expect there to be a clear tune to it. I'd hardly expect, if that is indeed what is driving you right now, for you to know what to do.
"It should be simple, shouldn't it? Kill Ranchefus and everything will be better. Right?" Arachne shook her head. "I feel no reluctance to kill Ranchefus -- except that I feel that the simple brute force required is beyond me. But I hold no hope that that would prove to be an end to the matter, or that doing so will give a sense of justice to the ghosts of our slain companions. Other problems (the growing mire, that gleaming glade) will likely persist, even if Ranchefus is removed. Killing him might get us _some_ justice -- maybe some cheap justice: How much could the life of one mangy evil priest be worth on the scales of justice? But not requiescence, Aloysius. To give our dead friends that requires more than just killing Ranchefus.
"You're a good wizard, Aloysius. And you're also a good man. You remember your friends, the dead as well as the living. And that's how you'll give them justice: By continuing to remember them, and by taking inspiration from your memory of them. That's what they're calling on you to do. And me. We will give our friends what they want as long as we shoulder the duty of somehow, continually, becoming better than we are, or thought we could be." She fell silent, her hands still on Aloysius's injuries.
"You could sit here and do nothing," she whispered. "Or you could sit here and make plans. Helps to have information if you're going to try to plan." She sighed and said more loudly, "Jana, I know you're not going to want to hear this, but maybe Echo by herself should go try to scout where the prisoners are kept. I think she has the best chance of hunting quietly and would be nearly as ready as me to retreat from a perilous situation (rather than try to start a fight). Then, when she comes back and we are ready to leave here, we could go with a plan for freeing the prisoners."
"Are you insane?" Jana asked incredulously. "No @&*#ing way are we sending someone out there alone, much less... No, it's too dangerous. Besides, that we're here is hardly a secret anyways."
"No," interjected Aloysius. "We must remain together. Our losses are already too great. I . . . we …couldn't bear to lose Echo now, too."
"You don't know what you can bear until it happens," Arachne sighed. "None of us does. And I can't promise you that disaster won't happen nor that Echo will surely return from her scouting unscathed. Scouting is a risk. But so is _not_ scouting. If we all go together, making our usual amount of clanking noise with the chain mail and splint armor -- which we _need_ to wear when we _intend_ to fight --" She stopped and took a breath. "If we go everywhere all together at once, then _we_ will never know where we're going and _they_ will always know when we're coming. As an occasional tactic, that has a place, but as a chronic strategy, it _will_ get us killed. All together, perhaps, but dead nonetheless. We need to accept the risk of scouting and then go ahead and do it sometimes -- like now. You could help Echo, you know: If you have any spells prepared that would help her be more effective at sneaking."
"Okay," Echo told the group in a terrified voice. "I'll go scouting. I'll try to be back in an hour. If anything happens to me, someone send my mother word of it." She waited to see if any one had anything to say before leaving the cabin.
"No way," Jana repeated, far more gently this time. "You can't go out there alone. Not again. Please, don't," she pleaded.
"N-no!" said Aloysius with a grimmace. "No one goes alone!" He took a deep breath as his face contorted with pain.
"Damn. . . ." he muttered. "No one else, save Ranchefus, dies this day. If my hatred of him means that he has won, then so be it, but he dies nonetheless."
He looked back at Arachne. "Now. Heal what you can…please."
"How can you guarantee that no-one but Ranchefus will die today?" Arachne asked, scorn edging into her voice. "You are letting grief overwhelm your reason. Didn't we just fight Ranchefus? All together? And didn't --" She broke off. "You remember what happened," she said lamely. "But Aloysius, think!" she continued earnestly. "You want to go kill Ranchefus. Great. We _all_ want to go kill Ranchefus. But if we _all_ go looking for Ranchefus to kill him, I _do_ guarantee you that we _won't_ find him unless he _wants_ to be found. And because I'm fairly sure that he don't want to die, I really do _not_ want to find
Ranchefus when he wants to be found. If we find him then, he'll have something prepared for us -- and I have had enough of trying to cope with his preparations.""I guarantee naught but my hatred for that bastard," spat Aloysius. His anger was quickly exceeding what his current health could manage.
"Not long ago, he took Echo captive and subjected her to . . .Mystra knows what horrors. Imagine his glee at seeing her approach all by herself. We dealt Ranchefus a grievous blow earlier, and damn it, now is the time to finish him. Our strength right now is our number. We'd be foolish to yield that advantage."
Now breathing quite hard, the mage began coughing and wrapped his arms about his chest.
"Hogwash," Arachne said. "You don't know what you're talking about -- and before you kill yourself with righteous dudgeon, consider my point: You don't _know_ what you're talking about. You're guessing that, because we wasted a bunch of his zombies and assistants, we dealt him a grievous blow. He walked away whistling. (Well, maybe not whistling, but he strolled.) You're guessing that, if we did deal him a grievous blow, he hasn't had enough time to recover. But you don't even know how long ago the battle ended. You don't know that we have any advantage at all. You're guessing -- and you want to bet what's left of everyone's lives all at once in a blind charge inspired by your wishful thinking. I'm tired of that strategy; it gets people killed."
"But Echo --" Arachne turned to the woman at the door. "If you don't want to go scouting, then don't go. _I_ believe that someone should, so if you'd rather not, then I want to go --" She glanced at the wizard.
"Shut up, Aloysius," she said quickly. "I can get killed in a fight just as easily as I can trying to scout out the avoidance of one." She turned back to Echo. "It's obvious to me that we need to scout. It's obvious to Aloysius that we all have to stick together. I don't expect our views to reconcile any time soon. Perhaps not ever. So that leaves you free to act as your own will dictates. Please, don't go scouting if you don't believe it's for the best. But if you _do_ believe in taking the risk to try to get some information, I will do what I can to keep Aloysius from blocking your way."The mage silently sneered at the gnome.
Noticing, she said, "I can't promise any effective result."
Arachne looked at the wizard and smiled. "So, you want to be healed, eh?" she asked playfully, but immediately got serious. "No. If I attempt my spooky magicks on you, it will only be for patching up your body."
"I'll . . .not bargain with thee for thy assitance, Arachne. No more than I would withhold my magics, as inneffectual as they may be, in an attempt to sway you all as to the proper course."
"It isn't that, Aloysius," Arachne sighed. "But if I exhaust myself doing what I can to heal you and then you immediately leap from your sick cot so we can all go haring off to slay the evil priest -- then the hell with you. I won't go with you. I won't let you drag me along while you press a phantom advantage that you want to believe we have. I've already done that once. I came down that ladder more dead than alive and pretty much drained of my spooky magick. I had no business surviving the fight in this grotto. I was ridiculously lucky and I would much prefer to learn from my good fortune. I will heal you, if you wish, but I won't join a subsequent priest-hunting foray that's justified by your speculation unless and until I've had a chance to rest." She shook her head. "I am very vexed with you."
Aloysius turned to Echo. "Thou hath acted heroically enow' this day already. Let thy continued valor remain tinted with discretion."
Arachne smiled broadly. "I agree completely," she told Echo. "It's just those pesky details: What you choose to do discreetly."
"Stargazer cares not what thou art," snapped the mage. "Take all the rest you need. I'll await all of you outside the cabin."
After taking a moment to summon his strength, Aloysius stood up and drug his pack out the door of the cabin.
Echo said, "I can't honestly say I want to go scouting by myself. I've been saying since we got in the mines that no one should be alone in here, but I'll go along with the group decision, whether that means I go alone, Arachne goes alone, or we all go together. Maybe me and Arachne could both go if the rest of you
think scouting is a good idea.""We could put it to a vote," she tenatively suggested, "a single scout, multiple scouts, or the whole group."
"How about we hold off scouting 'til later?" Jana suggested. "I mean, we need to look for the prisoners, but right now, if we had to fight something, well, I don't think I could last very long. So anyone who goes scouting would have pretty sucky backup. Maybe we ought to get outta here for a little while and get a little more healthy, then come on back to check the place out, like tomorrow? Besides," she added with a catch in her voice, "we need to deal with Etienne and Ceth."
"Whatever the rest of you want to do is okay with me," Echo replied.
"Uh huh," Arachne agreed. "Everything you say is true -- I have some unfinished business." She scampered out the door and found Aloysius.
"Do you want my help?" she asked, straightfaced.
Aloysius was sitting against a wall that afforded him a good view of the passage leading into the immediate
area. He looked at the gnome cooly, and then looked back at the passage."I'll not bargain thee for it," he replied flatly.
Daelen got up from his cot and stretched after Aloysius and Arachne had left.
"I'd rather take my rest somewhere else, this place has too much death." he said, shaking his head. With a sigh, he walked to where the suits of enchanted armor were laid out on the floor. He picked up the suit of splint Blacky wanted and inspected it for a moment before tossing it to the warrior. "You'll need it if you don't use a shield, I can probably wear your old one without too many alterations. I say we divy up the rest of this and head to town, those bodies outside are bound to attract something nasty." He paused and turned to Renn, "Anything you can do with holy water to make sure we never have to fight them again or do we just douse them with oil and light them up? Assuming the cave just keeps going down, the smoke should block the entrance for a day or two, at least that way it's less likely anyone will be leaving before we get back."
"I fear I have not enough holy water to serve our needs," Rennirolas shook his head in the negative. "It shall have to be the fire for the zombies and the bodies of our fallen foes. Are we to build a pyre for Cethryan and Etienne here, or bring them out of the caves before doing so?" Renn asked.
Aloysius came back into the cabin a short while after he left. "Arachne's plea for caution has merit," he said reluctantly. "Mayhap none of us, particularly myself, are currently fit to make decisions right now. Etienne and Cethyran deserve our attention. Let us depart this place and attend to them. mayhap on the morrow we can return."
He looked down at Arachne and smiled weakly. "Arachne, hast thou the strength to open one of thine portals to the upper level? That would save us the exertion of trying to carry . . . everything . . . up the ladder."
Renn pulled himself out of reverie, looked slightly better than he did before, simply through the peace of his rest. He felt his holy symbol swinging freely on the chain about his neck and stopped short. Renn began counting off on his four fingered hands with a very small frown on his face. "I have missed the night of the crescent moon," Renn told the others, "so after I attempt the casting from the captured scrolls, my prayers take on new form this day, a joyous celebration, the Lateu'quor. My heart is still heavy with sorrow for the loss of our friends, but the love and admiration I feel for Corellon is constant, and I take solace in his presence.
Rennirolas tried to cast from the two scrolls, and as Blacky had suggested, cast the cure light wounds on Aloysius, should he still need it, and the more difficult healing spell on himself.
Renn opened his flute case and sat upon the floor, with his legs crossed and the flute laid in his lap. He first began to sing, an Elven song that was full of joy, full of life, that seemed to ease the troubles of the spirit. The lines of woe in Renn's face lessened, and his voice was rich with the joy he sang of.
He reached down and picked up the flute at songs end, nearly twenty minutes after he had begun singing. Renn began to play a windy tune, it seemed to bear the notes of the forest, the wind whistling through the high treetops, the sound of the eagle above, the gentle tinkling of the brook.
Rennirolas wiped the tears from his eyes at songs end. "Were there other Feywardens about, this would have been a glorious celebration of the Protector. But I have made due as best I can," he smiled peacefully. "I have gained my lord's blessings again this day, and shall now pass them on to you."
Aloysius was quite taken in by Renn's musical homage to Corellon. Once he finished, the mage addressed him. "Rennirolas, in my pain and grief I allowed the dark priest to blacken my heart with hatred and bitterness. Your song has lifted me from that morass, and I thank you for it."
Renn bowed his head in gratitude. "Make no mistake, I will see this Ranchefus dead, though it take me the remainder of this long life I live," he smiled to Aloysius. "But we cannot become akin to our foes, for in doing so we lose ourselves."
Aloysius looked at the others. "Stargazer thinks it appropriate that Etienne and Cethyran's pyre be lit beneath the open sky rather than in this dank pit. Let us ready ourselves to depart, and then set Ranchefus's walking dead to the flame. By honoring those we have lost, we also reclaim that part of ourselves that Ranchefus would despoil."
Rennirolas added a softly spoken, "Aye."
"Stargazer shall bear what he can of these goods that we are taking with us. Perhaps if Eric, Janathell, and Daelen can transport Etienne, Cethyran and the heavier of the two chests, the rest of us can carry the remainder. One of Arachne's portals can relieve us of the burden of the ladder as well as the risk that Racnhefus has renewed its ward."
Aloysius started to gather up as much of the lighter stuff as he could.
"Hm? Ladder? Oh, yes. Since you've been such an active patient and I haven't been able to concentrate on your injuries, I still have plenty of strength. I could hold open a doorway between the two cave levels for quite a while."
Jana shrugged on her armor, all bloody and nasty despite a sketchy cleaning, and started pack up things. She tied everything together as much as she could for the purpose of transporting it. "Arachne, can I make more than one trip? There might be more here than we can get through in one trip. Can I go through, drop off a load, then run back to get another? If me'n Blacky do that a few times, we oughta be able to get everything out." She looked over in the direction of Etienne's body with a pain-filled expression.
Blacky watched the various discussions without comment. Once they had died down he spoke. "We need to divide this stuff up to the best advantage of the group, then we need to have Renn heal us to the best of his ability and use those scrolls as well. If we are healthy enough at that point, then we ought to search the rest of this level. I doubt we'll find Ranchefus here. If he was strong enough he would have come back by now. My guess is he retreated once more to gather his forces anew. We may find some prisoners or another of his notes." Blacky began "My armor and the better of the magical chain afford the wearer about the same protection or so I believe. The other magical splint would afford more. Jana, you may not care about the armor but the better protected you are the better off the group is. I'd suggest Jana take the better chain and Daelen the better splint. I'll keep what I have. The scrolls and a mace should go to Renn, obviously. The two sets of boots and the robes should be split between Arachne, Echo and Aloysius. The dagger to either Aloysius or Echo. The house, other weapons, jewelry and armor... we'll figure out later. The chests are coming with us or at least the contents, if we can figure out how to open them without getting killed. When we're ready to leave, we collect Etienne and Ceth and set those other bodies on fire." Blacky finally finished "Sound like a plan?"
Jana, still huddled against the wall, looked up as Blacky spoke to her. She shrugged noncommittally and returned her attention to the wall.
Renn cast the spells from the scroll on himself and Aloysius before beginning to distribute his own prayers among the wounded. The scrolls still left both men in poor condition after their near death experiences so they received a prayer, as did Blacky, Echo, and Jana. The healings left both Aloysius and Echo in good shape, relatively speaking, but Renn and the fighters were still seriously hurt.
"Stargazer wishes not any of the enchanted items," said Aloysius. "Echo and Arachne may take whate'er items Renn and the fighters waive claim to so far as I'm concerned. As for our next action, let us use
Arachne's portal to transport what we have found, as well as Cethyran and Etienne, out of this place. Once we have done that, mayhap then we can discuss a return."Having burdened himself with whatever he was capable of, the mage stood ready to leave.
Aloysius took a scroll case out from his pack and handed it to Arachne. "Mayhap either thee or Echo should carry this," he said. "It may never be needed at all, but if it is, you may be better positioned to
do so than I. It creates some sort of protective barrier against plant life, and anyone can employ it.""You're sure you don't want the dagger?" Echo asked Aloysius. "It's a nice one. Once we find out what the other things are, you might want something. If I get the dagger, you and Arachne get first choice of the other stuff once it's identified if it's something you can use. That's assuming that Blacky's suggestion is okay with the rest of you. Depending on how long we decide to sit still, if we do at all, I might be able to identify something at least."
Aloysius showed Echo the semi-healed slash on his arm. "Stargazer can provide thee with a personal assurance as to the sharpness of yon blade," he said with an odd smirk.
"You keep the dagger. As I said afore, I wish not to possess any of the enchanted items, weapons or otherwise."
"Why not?" Echo asked.
Aloysius seemed taken aback by Echo's question. "Uh. . .'tis a matter of personal philosophy, I suppose.
Moonspawn instructed me that a true wizard must eschew ownership of items enchanted by another 'lest the wizard rely too greatly on them to the neglect of his own art."He nodded his head sadly. "Realize do I that mine own enchantments be sorely lacking and that I may well benefit from some type of augmentation. Howe'er, I must learn to hone mine own incantations better afore I employ artificial devices. 'Tis the best explanation I can give."
Echo looked puzzled. "Aloysius, I know plenty of "true wizards" who use enchanted items. None of the wizards I studied with in Candlekeep ever said anything like what your Moonspawn did. Even Elminster of Shadowdale and Khelben Blackstaff are said to have items like that, and if I was going to say they weren't true wizards, I sure wouldn't do it on the face of Toril. I don't want to step on anyone's beliefs, but don't you think it would be better for the group if everyone used what we have to the best advantage? I mean, you don't think any less of the warriors for using enchanted armor and weapons, do you? It's not neglecting their own art to use that stuff any more than you'd be neglecting yours if you used a magic item."
Aloysius pondered Echo's words. "Other than Moonspawn and yourself, I've ne'er really known any others who practice the arts. So much of what Moonspawn taught me has proved to be correct, I am hesitant to deviate from his words just yet. Moonspawn himself employed enchanted items, but he told me that he had enchanted them all himself. Wonder do I if the wizards you mention follow the same practice."
"No, Aloysius," Echo replied, "they don't. Not many wizards enchant all the magical items they use.
Moonspawn is the first I've ever heard of who even mentioned such a thing."The mage sighed and shook his head. "In any event, if I prove no more proficient at employing such items as I have in weaving spells, then the items would doubtless be in better hands other than mine own."
Echo replied, "There is nothing wrong with your weaving spells, and there'd be nothing wrong with you having a magical item if there was one you could use. If you don't think you can take something because of what that wizard told you, I have to respect that even though I don't agree with it at all. It's better to have enchanted items distributed among a lot of people than one person having them all, strategically anyway. At least think about it."
"I shall consider it," replied Aloysius.
"Aloysius," Jana said, trying hard not to sound exasperated, "I've seen a few real-live functioning mages in my life. I grew up in mercenary camps and mages sometimes work as mercs. Which I guess means we aren't all stupid, even if we all aren't very bright," she joked. "But anyway, every last one of these mages would jump at the chance for something enchanted to help them. And we wanted them to have it, too, because mages aren't good fighters. They can't wear armor and cast spells, so we need them to have help, if only so we didn't have to spend so much time protecting them. And for that matter, hells, I'm good with my sword and mace. Okay, so I suck at the bow still, but I stuck to those two weapons when I was training because I wanted to get really good with 'em. And believe me, having a magical weapon doesn't make me any less good. It only makes me better."
"As I said," replied the mage, "I shall consider it. I am hard-pressed to conclude that Moonspawn would have advised me incorrectly. Besides," he added with a serious expression, "it seems that I have spent more time 'protecting' others than vice-versa."
He raised his chin. "Yet shall I prove to be a mage worthwhile."
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