Ch: 202 Knocking At My Door
“Stop thieves! Invaders! Brigands!” The voice seemed to come from everywhere, forceful, but not loud. “Flee my wrath! My guardians come even now!”
“Your squad of hollowbodies? We already beat that drum. Now we’re here to wreck your shit, ya creepy putz.” Gary shouted back at the far end of the room.
“You primitives will never learn my secrets! You will perish here, destroyed by my warriors!” It wailed, unheeding.
“Looks like a Gary situation. Creepy undead wizards workshop.” Liam relayed to the second team, speaking over the noise. “Advance to the door and observe. Do not enter or interfere.” He turned to his team and nodded at the musician. “Do your thing.”
“...by divine right! Get your filthy hands my goods, I shall have you all in the court of Order! Wretched peasants! I will buy your indentures and install your corpses in my great working!”
“Right, ignore anything he says, I doubt he’s got many marbles left.” Gary said quietly. “Tallum, Shai, start cutting those wires from the jars, carefully… don’t open the bottles. No flames in here! I smell a leak.” Gary whispered. “Let’s spread out, keep those shields ready.”
A wide ramp led up to a familiar stone slab loading door, explaining how he got the bottles in. Gary and Tallum jimmied it open, flooding the space with sunlight and fresh air at last.
The pickled potentate continued to howl as they stalked through the huge wine cellar of abominations. The mages in the group took careful note of the things they passed, no signs of the ritual magic the cult used was in evidence, these were purely undead constructs. Several of the animals, including a truly infuriating number of puppies and kittens showed signs of being slain for… whatever this was.
Many of the human and humanoid wretches looked like the result of the graverobbers’ and resurrectionists’ arts, at least in the beginning.
Things got more murdery as they went deeper into the laboratory. First it was beastfolk, with signs of violent death brought suddenly, then humans. Mostly the young, and probably powerless; some things were always true.
“Hey! I found his voice box! It’s like your harmonium but smaller and hooked up with wires!” Becky called from a corner of the room.
“Cut it! I’m sick of hearing this guy.” Liam snapped, while looking at a jar holding a teenaged catboy with a confused expression on his face and his throat slit.
The constant threats, demands and insults ended, they were repetitive and showed little actual understanding of what was happening.
“I shall call down the wrath of eldritch things on your heads, peasant swine, your corpses will join my array and further my journey into immortality! Your blood will lubricate the…!” A soft crackle ended his tirade nicely.
“Donesies.” Becky reported in the suddenly quiet room.
“Team two, you are go to enter the chamber, stay back, touch nothing. Do not interfere or touch anything, this is an active magical array.” Liam ordered firmly. “Did I mention not touching things, let me stress that.”
“Understood.” Khan answered drily.
The nervous observers passed by dozens and dozens of jars, holding a small army of dead, staring corpses, whose eyes followed the living in a super creepy way.
“This is a much more refined version of what they did to Wicklow the bottle zombie.” Gary narrated for his team and the observers. “These were all fully dead when jarred, so they don’t have his extreme resistance to tampering… this assclown was just skimming the remnant life force and Animus to preserve his own corpse and reach for immortality.” He grumbled angrily.
“This shit bird is a hoarder and fancies himself a researcher. See, he started with small livestock and stolen pets, then on to grave robbing. As we move along the murders start, first beastfolk, ‘cause, of course. Then kids, probably orphans, most likely listed as ‘runaways’.”
He nodded at a jar containing a bunny girl with strangulation marks around her throat. “We’d probably find he was involved with the local orphanage or the cult of Order, if we could dig in his records.”
“Scurrilous and unfounded accusations aside…” Pangbourne sneered. “Perhaps you should smash these things and have done.”
“Sure… and when we start smashing them, where will all that toxic, highly combustible liquid go?” Gary asked wryly. “We’re going to handle this safely.”
Slowly the team worked their way to the silvery nest at the head of the chamber, where things started making more and less sense.
The ‘nest’ turned out to be an exquisitely elaborate magical circle. Woven and braided in spider silk and copper wires, it formed a mind bendingly complex cornucopia woven in rare substances, that crackled with some subtle force. Not electricity, something less obvious and more threatening.
“That’s the concentrated, refined energy of a dying sentient. Harnessing magical energy is fine and natural. It’s how magic and enchantments work… but this is just an obscenity.” He spoke to the gathered living, and to the silent, bottled man staring in impotent rage from inside a large and luxuriously appointed jar.
“Fine and pretty things, even a rug, you thought you had it all figured out.” He snapped at the corpse floating in a well furnished jar of liquid. There was a wing chair, a comfy bed and even an assortment of books, somehow preserved in the liquid with the floating ‘eternal lord’.
“You thought you would be able to climb out and pretend to be a living man… didn’t you.” He turned back to the living people and jerked a disrespectful thumb at the well dressed corpse in ancient finery.
“Dipshit thought he could get all the perks of being a vampire, without any of the downsides. Now he’s just a turd in a jar, waiting to be flushed away.”
He turned back to the complex magical array, lined out in precious stones, copper, silver and spidersilk. “I’m going to loot his life’s work, melt it for scrap, destroy all his notes without reading them and erase his very existence from all memory, living and dead…”
Technically a corpse preserved in liquor shouldn’t be able to turn pale or look stricken with fear and horror, but magic is a funny thing.
“I don’t deal in punishments or vengeance, when it comes to the undead… you make me want to bend my rules a little.” He said with a cold smile for the corpse lord in a bottle.
“We are going to steal everything that’s worth carting away, lord nobody, master of nothing. Then I am going to wipe all trace of you from the world and forget you ever were. See you soon.”
With the last connection to the bottles cut away, the web construct slowly lost its lambent, sinister thrumming sense of menace, becoming a pile of riches, waiting to be swiped.
“The descendants of this lord should be the rightful…” Pangbourne shuddered to a halt, under the heated gazes of a number of loot hungry commoners.
“This is outside human lands. The law allows us to pillage these treasures as we will, by right of conquest.” Khan answered firmly. “Adventure law is clear on the matter, sir Pangbourne. Feel free to lodge a complaint with the cult of order when we return to the lands of men.”
Khan watched the scavenging orphans, gleefully looting the lab and glaring at the current owner with defiance and disgust. “If you try and stop them, I will not aid you.”
The gang held a quick meeting, at the foot of the furious bottled sphincter. “...Good call. Let’s do it.” Liam said with satisfaction, when their conversation ended.
“Master Khan, please signal the home team to join us, we will be relocating here tonight. Rolf, if you and your team want to loot the upstairs, we will cut you in on full shares of all the goods. Don’t worry about the lightning rod outside, it’s inert now, we cut the power.”
“I need you to collect scrap metals too!” Tallum barked as the escort team started looking excited.
“And books, antiquities… never mind, we’re coming with, it’s a mess up there!” Ivy grumbled.
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“Go on. Shai, Becks and I will handle things down here.” Gary murmured. “It’s going to be quite a show when it pops off.”
“Aye, the children do love yer fireworks, lad.” Shai murmured with satisfaction as she filled a basket with beads of jade, amethyst, opal, lapis and gold. Becky was busy stripping silver and copper wire out of the rapidly collapsing net and stuffing coils of the material into her storage gift.
By the time the kids and their guardians arrived on scene, the looting was almost done. A few pieces of furniture were worth saving, protected by some miracle of time and chance, mostly it was scrap goods. Corroded jewelry, broken sculptures of bronze and gold, large quantities of copper and bronze household goods and a few fixtures that were interesting, like the door locks that had simply ripped from the rotten wooden doors. They were intricate and very valuable to Tallum and Gary.
Those two were chiseling the armored safe door out of the wall of the office, when the home team arrived. They set up in the horsies’ meadow, once the scavenging was done with.
Gary and Shai brought the house over with a little bit of ‘In The Mood’. Benny Goodman was just right, the perfect choice to cleanse the filthy aura of the place.
As their influence spread over the house of horrors, the roof collapsed with a weak and feeble sigh of exhaustion. That was followed by the deafening clatter of the roof slates hitting the lower floors. Dust and debris drifted skyward as the setting sun kissed the mountain tops and the wildly drifting ethereal moon came into view.
“Spark ‘em please, Shai.” Gary whispered. It had taken a long time to carefully pry open all those corpse jars and dip a wick of old rags into each opening. The smell had been abysmal, but the results should be worth it.
She cast her forge lighting cantrip onto a thick mass of rubbish and dead branches stuffed in the open loading ramp leading down to the hidden lab. It burned fitfully, drawn in by the draught created by opening the hidden escape tunnel in the secret horror chamber… Because of course he had one.
There was a quiet ‘crump’ as bottles started touching off one by one. Sunset slowly climbed down the mountains and made itself at home on the valley floor, before switching out the lights. Just a few minutes after full darkness landed, a bright pink mote of light shot skyward, blasting up from the slowly crumbling manor house. It was followed by another, sheathed in trailing silver sparkles a heartbeat later. They burst in shimmering light and slowly drifting glitter, over the wide, still lake.
The light of the fire died down as the desiccated and ravaged structure surrendered to the inevitable. The basement lab’s contents remained volatile and demonstrative, launching one incandescent spark after another into the sky to detonate.
The bathers served a light dinner in the garden, so everyone could stay up late to watch the show. It was an impressive display, one that went on into the night.
“There’s no lingering zombie horde to call down with this…” Gary murmured happily from a blanket with his family. “We can just watch til bedtime.”
About a hundred ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhhs’ later, another loud ‘crump’ sounded, as a flurry of incandescent sparks flew into the sky and shattered into sparkling, exploding motes of splendid, showering glitter.
“That was the pickled princeling going off… he puts on a good show, for a puckered asshole afire. I’d like to imagine he can feel himself burning… but he can’t.” Gary sighed in utter satisfaction, with his little family all around, as silence and darkness fell over the valley.
“He did have to watch though, so that’s something. His jar was a little more like Wicklowe’s, much more durable. He had his actual soul in there so it was more resistant to fire, until it finally popped.”
Morning drifted over the mountains slowly, until the sun poked her shining face over the peaks and rattled them all awake. All over the garden, on blankets and in bedrolls, Adventurers and a few of the more adventurous souls woke from a peaceful night under the stars and moons.
Gary and Shai were already up, along with Ivy and Tallum, working on breakfast. The horses were cantering around the wide grassy meadow doing horse stuff, under the careful direction of Amy and her two brothers.
“How did we do yesterday…? With the loot, I mean. I was kinda busy with my peasant witchcraft.” Gary mumbled over a wide griddle covered with rapidly rising flapjacks.
“Don’t have a final tally yet…” Tallum gasped, with a chunk of fried potato in his mouth. It was very freshly fried, from his breathy and pained exhalation of steam. “Ish a lot though…” He gasped and muttered.
“Aye, lad o mine, yer purse will be a mite fatter soon. Tis a fair piece of coin we’ll hae, aside from the goods an scrap.” Shai and Tallum both shuddered with glee at the smelting and salvaging ahead of them. “We hae a huge bag o mixed jewelry lad… twill keep thee frae mischief fer some time, slavaging that loot.”
“I can multi task!” He said with a mad grin. “Come to think of it, I never asked what this job pays…” Gary muttered happily, with a spatula in each hand.
“This be a private expedition. We will receive a stipend fer the care an feeding of our observers, but the contract be fer no pay, save what we salvage an loot.” Shai answered firmly and with a happy smile.
“A freebie… and you are ok with that?” He asked in wonder.
“This is my personal expedition, Gary. I assumed you would be happy to help, considering.” Tawny chimed in, fresh from the bath and glowing with Joy’s light.
“When the fringe retreated, The duke was required by law to appoint executors to mind the recovered estates, until valid heirs can be located. I was assigned this place, thus it fell to me to explore and survey the remnants.” She sat down beside Liam and made herself comfortable… and him as well.
“Someone mentioned that lady Helene has a claim here…” He murmured unhappily. We’re gonna wanna loot this place more thoroughly if it’s hers.”
“Now, now. By law, once the place has been pacified, we can’t just keep pillaging it.” Khan grumbled from the stable window. “We aren’t brigands.” He shot Pangbourne a smile that annoyed the knight just a little. Lady Emma had spent most of the evening watching the fireworks with her head on Frank’s lap, so it was less effective than expected.
Breakfast in the garden was followed by a day of careful exploration… as the teams broke up into trios and quartets to cover more ground. Gary, Shai and Becky took Seahorse out on the lake, cruising slowly over the waterways, while Khan, Luna and Hamish prowled the overgrown River Road on foot.
Tallum, Ivy, Tawny and Rolf took Pangbourne, Trent and Emma to wander the streets and roads of the outer wards on horseback.
Rolf’s team stayed at the inn, sorting loot and enjoying the sensation of impending payday for all they were worth. A small keg of very fine beer appeared on the bar as the teams were leaving, that helped too.
“…three fire opals, some cut and polished jet, a half ounce of fine silver.” Wilf muttered, with a silvery green tangle in his hand. Verdigris had spread over much of it obscuring the details, much of the jewelry and small goods were in a similar condition. Susan had given him a wad of necklaces to untangle, since he seemed interested.
Moments later his chubby, childish fingers had slipped them all apart, untangled and sorted, as if by magic… When he started appraising the objects, like a professional jeweler, Wilf became very popular.
“A flawless ruby, a quarter ounce of finest gold, two small pearls and one pigeon blood ruby…” Wilf seemed to enjoy his jewelry sorting game, so Amy and Rio entertained themselves. Emma’s maid, Maddie disliked children, so following her around and asking questions was good clean fun.
She had taken to hiding from them, which just made it more fun. No one could really hide in the house, not unless Gary or Shai let them, so ‘stumbling on’ her hiding spots was literal child’s play. Amy and Rio crept slowly around a lumber rack in the workshop, following her little location pip on their mental maps of home.
Hide and seek was more fun when everybody in the game had ‘interface’ but spooking unwary grownups was good fun too. “She’s talking to somebody…” Rio whispered, as they drew close.
“Nobody’s down here but us an her…” Amy answered with her newest vocal trick, whispering right in his ear, silently. “Let’s snoop…”
“...what guarantee have I, that you will fulfill your end… how can I be sure?” Maddie asked in a fevered whisper.
“Open the bucket and all will be made plain…” A harsh voice whispered from a terrible distance.
The woman was bent nearly double, rooting around in Gary’s locked cabinet of nasty things, looking for something.
“What kind of workshop has no tools to open a metal pail?” She grumbled quietly. “Ahh, what’s this?” She whispered in triumph, pulling a long leather case from the back of the cabinet.
“Hey! That stuff’s naughty! You can’t play with those!” Amy yelled at the woman, in a righteous fury.
Maddie Hopkins whirled around, with a vicious snarl on her face. “Gods cursed whelps!” She held a terrifying and disturbing black cudgel in her hand, gripping it with white knuckled rage.
She lashed out, piercing the bucket with the horrid, black metal spike jutting from the business end; heedless of the wound inflicted on her own wrist by the wicked serpent headed handle of the weapon. With a hideous grin she turned on the two children, dark blood dripped slowly to the floor from two punctures at her wrist as she advanced on the two kids. A dark shadow spread from behind her, where the opened bucket lay, spilling something very ominous into the darkened basement workshop.
#
The wide, level streets had been well paved, but untold generations of trees and brush had tumbled the pavers and obscured most of the formerly well laid paths. The mounted team picked their way slowly over those paths not fully engulfed by the forest. Every building was a tumbledown pile or a foundation filled with overgrowth and undergrowth. Parks and squares were meadows and thickets; while the large civic structures like guild halls and stonebuilt buildings loomed over their collapsed ruins with gloomy, but hopeful sense of expectation. Even those large halls and forges were just rubble choked ruins inside, excavating what could be salvaged or rebuilt would be the work of decades. As they passed a large hall of cut and dry fitted tufa stone, something large and shiny hurtled out of the wide, empty doorway, lunging for Pangbourne’s horse.
Tall, delicate and extraordinarily gentle tempered, Violet lashed out, cow kicking the gigantic silverfish in the eye, smashing the organ into goo. It scuttled back for the darkness with astounding speed, dripping silvery blue ichor in its trail. A moment later, it dashed out again, trying to snatch Emma from her saddle.
As one, Liam and Pangborne spurred their mounts, lowered their lances and sprinted at the fast moving monster bug. Low to the ground, with a multitude of flashing legs; the wide, silver insect was a sprinter, but only in straight lines. Cagy and clever, Sandi danced back out of the creature’s line, as the two warriors closed in with lances ready.
Before a startled Emma fully understood that they were under attack, the beast was thrashing its last, skewered by a pair of lances that crossed each other just behind its grotesque, many pincered head. The two young men eyed each other as they cantered back to the party and dismounted.
“Well struck…” Pangbourne admitted, as he helped Liam wrench his weapon free.
“Yours as well.” Liam murmured as they worked to recover Pangbourne’s.
Emma slipped to the ground and hugged Sandi around her neck with a shuddering gasp of sudden tension and relief. With practiced ease, Liam, Ivy and Tawny took up watch, while Tallum brought his massive billhook into play.
“You are planning to butcher that thing?” Pangbourne asked with disgust in his voice.
“Yeah, giant silverfish almandine is on the menu tonight!” Ivy sang happily. “I’ll make dry toast and weak tea for those whose constitutions can’t handle a little sauteed monster.”
She fell silent and a look of deep concern crossed her face as a loud, shattering explosion echoed up from the direction of the inn.
“Let’s move!” Liam barked. Swinging back into Winslow’s saddle. “Lady Emma, You need to come now!” He had his eyes fixed on the not too distant lake shore and a column of smoke and dust rising from the inn, mingling with the steam from the baths.
#
Khan and Luna were having a fine ride, down a wide, open road. The trees seemed unable to wreck the heavy stone blocks of basalt that formed the roadway. They did press in close though, cottonwood, cottage willow, alder and more were all clustered and growing tall and straight. There was nearly enough softwood timber to rebuild the town just along the roadside and river towpath.
Hamish was a lumberman, as much as any noble would or could be. His lands produced much of the timber for his local area and his woodcutter’s guild did a brisk business. He had some insights on the trade that Khan and Luna found less interesting than hunting. Since there was virtually no wildlife, they wound up listening as he prattled about board feet per acre and drayage fees.
“... clear the towpath and start floating lumber upstream, cutting from the outskirts in. Keep your costs down as the project progresses.” The man had a pipe stuffed with pleasant scented herbs smoldering between his teeth as he held forth on his topic.
He jumped and nearly bit his pipestem in half, when a sudden crack sounded from the inn far behind them.
A glance at the nearby river showed that Seahorse was flying back upstream, silently cutting a roostertail of glittering spray behind her.
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