Cicadas, the 30th of Lost Speed, 4E 201

They encountered no more dragons or Daughtr or Frost Acrobats as they made their way through the courtyard and up through the levels of the Temple exterior. Thral’s Shout seemed to have wiped the place clean of anything that wasn’t nailed down. In no time at all, they reached the great metal gates of the Temple and pushed them open.

The large entrance chamber contained a stone structure at its center in the shape of what looked like a grapefruit. Above it hung two banners of the cloaked figure with a walking stick in his hand. Cages hung from the walls, filled with various types of fruit in various states of decay. The room smelled of fruit, both fresh and decaying, and was well-lit by several braziers. They huddled around two of these to warm themselves and dry off their clothes. Kharla checked her shoulder. The armor would need mending, but the axe hadn’t penetrated the flesh.

Mell opened the box at her belt and pulled out a book. “I’m glad this pouch is waterproof. I hate it when a book gets damaged, especially if I’ve not finished it.”

“We better get moving,” Kharla said after they’d warmed up a little. “I doubt all the Daughtr were outside when Thral sent them flying. Tread carefully and swiftly, and watch out for collapses too.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I think Thral may have weakened the structure a little.”

Thral poked a piece of fruit on a nearby stone table as they left the main chamber. They passed burial urns, pot urns, more braziers, and more stone tables, before ascending a set of steps through a passage to another large chamber where two gates, both down, sat at the far end. In the middle, another one of those pillar puzzles stood, this time with fruit symbols—a grapefruit, a peach, and a banana as best as Kharla could make out. The outer symbols were identified easily enough after finding the corresponding panels by the pillars. The middle pillar had to be turned to open each of the gates, though only one was of use as the tunnel behind the other had fallen in and blocked the way. Thral’s handiwork perhaps?

They took the steps beyond the gate and then through a passage to their left that opened up onto a wooden walkway above a small room with a stone altar at its center and several black upright sarcophagi lining its walls. The one at the far end of the room looked different, however. A lever stuck out from one side, and on its surface a line of three fruits in stone—a banana, grapefruit, and peach.

“Any ideas?” asked Kharla.

Ti’lief shook his head. “Just pull the lever and see what happens.”

“That sounds like a bad idea,” said Draloth.

“Well, we have no choice. I don’t see any way forward so maybe this lever opens something.”

Kharla pulled the lever and as it returned to its position the fruits on the surface of the sarcophagus began to move. They seemed to be on some kind of three-part stone cylinder that moved when the lever was pulled. They span to reveal a new combination of fruits—grapefruit, grapefruit, banana.

Kharla heard footsteps in the chamber they’d just come through. She knew that sound. Daughtr. Mell pulled on the lever—banana, grapefruit, banana. The sarcophagi in the room burst open and the Daughtr within them began to stir.

Ti’lief pulled the lever—peach, banana, banana. “This seems totally random. It would be pure luck to get the right combination!”

Draloth pulled the lever—peach, peach, peach. The device shuddered and the surface of it fell backwards to reveal a passage, the floor of which was strewn with fruit. Behind them now several Daughtr lumbered forward, some moaning as if waking from a long sleep.

Kharla and the others piled through the exit, squelching their way through the fruit-strewn floor daring not to look back at the oncoming undead. The passage was short and filled with webs, so think in places that Kharla had to take her axe to them. She caught movement from the ceiling and sides. Little boots at the end of hairy legs. Frostboot Spiders. They pressed on, moving past the arachnids before the spiders had time to attack. Maybe these ones just ate fruit, but Kharla didn’t want to stop to find out.

Kharla shoved the double wooden door open at the end of the passage and they found themselves in a large room with no obvious exit.

“Bar the door!” shouted Kharla.

Thral lifted a huge fallen stone and shoved it against the door.

“Good, that’ll keep them out for a while. Now how do we get out of here?” asked Kharla.

“There’s a lever up here!” said Ti’lief who had run up to the walkway across the chamber. “More of those fruit pillars again. One either side, in the walls.”

“One down here too,” said Mell who had started to walk around the base of the walkway.

A large icy club punched a hole through the door and shattered against the stone beneath the walkway.

Eilgird drew her sword and faced the door. “Hurry up!”

Six gaping holes in the door later they solved the puzzle. A wooden platform lowered as they pulled the lever and they all rushed across it, Eilgird at the rear, as the door below split and the Daughtr, Frost Acrobats, and Frostboot Spiders surged through.

The platform led to another double door, through a passage, up some steps into a small room, through a twisting tunnel, across another walkway, and into a round room with a spiral wooden walkway leading upwards.

“Hurry!” shouted Eilgird from the rear. “The Acrobats are nearly upon us!”

“Maybe you can use that feather again?” Ti’lief shouted as he ran up the wooden steps.

“Are you kidding?” Kharla shouted back. “If the blowback doesn’t kill us, the collapsing stonework will!”

Kharla was glad to find out that the lever that opened the gate at the top of the staircase required no puzzle. They all rushed through it and then through a passage that looked much like the Hall of Series at Teak Halls Barrow, though the artwork had long since crumbled. Kharla heard some of the Daughtr scream as she heard Eilgird knock some of the oil lamps down onto the oil slicks with her sword. Hopefully, that would delay them because now they had another problem. The passage they had just entered had one of those puzzle doors at the end and guarding it was a large Daughtr who screamed on seeing them.

Ti’lief got the full blast of the scream and his soft leather hood and tunic disappeared down the corridor. “Hey!” he shouted.

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The Daughtr at the puzzle door screamed again and Draloth’s cap disappeared. “Hey, that was my father’s!”

“Your grandfather’s too,” said the blue apparition that had appeared next to him.

Eilgird turned her sword toward the ghost as she caught up.

“It’s all right,” said Kharla. “This is Nyranfar. He’s with us.”

Eilgird frowned along with Ti’lief, Mell and Thral. “Oh, if you say so. But there won’t be an ‘us’ very soon unless we can get through that gate.

“I suppose I need to help out again? I’ll deal with the pursuers. You deal with the guardian.” Nyranfar raised his hands and the fire burning on the oil slick near the entrance to the passage swirled upward and formed a wall of flames some feet thick, causing the pursuers to stop. A few icy projectiles streaked through the flames but most melted before they made it through the flames, not that their intended target would’ve been harmed anyway. Being a ghost and all.

Kharla’s spear took out the Daughtr guarding the door. Its scream only seemed to work on attire, unlike that other Daughtr they’d encountered whose scream worked on weapons. She was relieved to find a puzzle door claw in its hand. She read the symbols in the palm—lemon, strawberry, apple—and turned the circles on the door to match. She inserted the claw and the door began to open downwards.

The passage beyond led up some steps and into another chamber of some size, one of those Weird Walls at the far end. Several stands with fruit lined the walls, and a large stone block mounted with a huge stone banana jutted out from the wall on the right.

One exit left the room, a passageway to the left of the Weird Wall, but to Kharla’s dismay, not a few Daughtr came shambling toward them from that direction. Then the Frostboot Spiders, Frost Acrobats, and Daughtr that had been pursuing them broke into the chamber. They were surrounded.

“Quick, up here!” shouted Eilgird as she clambered up some fallen stonework and broken pillars by the side of the stone block. They all made their way up to the ledge and then up onto the banana. It was hard enough a climb to deter any Daughtr, but the Acrobats and Spiders were another matter. Thral, Kharla and Eilgird guarded the way at the top of the rubble by the stalk of the banana while the others moved farther down the giant stone fruit.

Nyranfar appeared on the banana next to his descendant. “Isn’t being a merchant and wearing strange costumes bad enough? Must you add ‘dying atop a giant banana’ to the list? Are you determined to discredit the House of Incando’s good name?”

Draloth looked at the ghost. “I don’t intend dying here. Anyway, I thought you were protecting us?”

“Ran out of fire. I burned the boots off a few of those Spiders first though.”

The Daughtr started to surround the stone block, looking up at Kharla and her companions with their soulless ice-blue eyes as they grabbed fruit from the stands and started throwing it at them. The Frost Acrobats danced around, trying to find a way up, shooting clubs of ice now and again. The remaining Frostboot Spiders tried to clamber up the rubble.

Kharla ducked as a large peach splattered on the wall behind her. Then one of the Daughtr screamed and Ti’lief lost the throwing knife he had pulled from his belt. Then another scream saw the Khapiit lose his breeches.

Ti’lief covered himself with a grapefruit. “Oh, the shame! This one is naked!”

“You’re covered in fur, you fool! How can you be naked?” said Draloth just before a rotten orange burst across his clothing. “Ewww! That’ll stain!”

“Can you do anything?” Ti’lief asked Nyranfar.

“I don’t have any clothes on me, I’m afraid,” replied the ghost.

“No, this one meant about the undead below.”

“Ah, I see.” Nyranfar looked around. “I can get some fire going from the braziers, though I doubt it’ll do much. Those Frost Acrobats don’t burn so easily. Melting them takes a lot more effort.”

Another scream disarmed Eilgird, her sword flying out of her hand and across the chamber. “Oi! That’s the property of the Jarl, you bonewalker criminals!”

Nyranfar sent a gush of flames into the Daughtr below and one of them screamed as it took fire and crumpled to the ground.

Below, the Frost Acrobats had begun to form a pyramid, balancing on each other, getting closer and closer to the ledge. The screams increased and the Spiders’ little booted legs started to appear at the top of the rubble. Kharla was at a loss as to what they could do. Nyranfar was sending down flames upon them, but not fast enough to stop their assault. And the Daughtr who’d summoned the Frost Acrobats were hiding behind the pyramid so that Nyranfar’s flames couldn’t touch them. What else could they do? If Thral sneezed in a confined space like this they’d surely all be killed, but perhaps better that than being ripped apart by the decaying remains of badly behaved girls.

But Kharla, as it turned out, didn’t need to make that choice.

One of the Daughtr screamed and ripped off Mell’s belt, sending Usborne’s book pouch into a brazier where it went up in flames.

“Hey!” shouted the Breton “That was a signed copy! My blood is boiling,” she continued as orbs of light started swirling around above her. Angry balls of light that reflected the rage in the Bretons’ eyes. Kharla had never seen her like this before. “And I prefer it when it’s calm.”

A hundred balls of angry light, like blue fire, shot down into the Daughtr’s mouths, briefly but intensely flaring as their heads exploded one by one with deathly screams. The face of the Frost Acrobat at the top of the pyramid fixed its menacing eyes on Kharla and the others before it and those beneath it exploded in a burst of frost, ice particles, and tights, as their Daughtr mistresses fell to the ground.

Nyranfar shot out a final flame at the surviving Frostboot Spider as it reached the ledge. Its burned body tumbled back down the rubble. “You know, Breton, that was impressive. Maybe I should have mastered in light rather than fire.”

Mell smiled. “Thank you.”

After weapons and clothes were recovered, they made their way out of the passage behind the Weird Wall to find themselves on the platform of the Temple right below the portal. Two huge flights of stairs led up, stairs they took carefully in case any Daughtr had survived Thral’s earlier sneeze.

As they reached the top of the stairs a chilling sight greeted them. Perched high above on towers, flanking the great portal, sat two dragons. Two large dragons. And before the portal, a cloaked figure hung in the air. On seeing them he turned and pulled a walking stick from a seal on the ground and the portal began to close.

The seven of them lined up as the cloaked figure turned and drifted toward them. It looked remarkably like the figure on the banners throughout the Temple.

“I am Nektariin, a servant of the Secret Fruit, wielder of the Plum of Alun. Go back to Skewrim. You shall not pass!” Nektariin’s orange cloak fluttered behind him as he drew close. Upon his face he wore a pinkish-reddish half-mask with a bumpy, knobbly texture. His uncovered skin was translucent white with a pink tinge. Kharla could smell something as he neared. A fragrant, sweet aroma that reminded her of flowers.

“Lychee!” said Nyranfar. “Beware its walking stick!”

Nektariin raised said stick and pointed it at them. From it shot a gush of red. Fire? Acid? As it hit Kharla she realized what it was. “Fruit juice?”

“A mix of fruits, I’d say,” said Draloth, licking his lips.

The stick continued to gush out the red-colored juice, making it hard to get to the now almost-closed portal. The wave of liquid started to push them back down the steps.

“Get its walking stick!” said Nyranfar, who wasn’t at all affected by the liquid but was also unable to grab the stick due to having no body.

“You do realize,” shouted Draloth at Nektariin, “that you could be selling this stuff at a good price in Skewrim?”

“What?” came the Lychee’s voice. “You will bleed for your disobedience!”

“No,” said Draloth. “It’s you that’s bleeding. Bleeding wealth. I mean, with a stick like that you could be making a lot of gold.”

“I could?” said Nektariin, looking from Draloth to his walking stick.

“Why yes, the amount of juice on the ground right now, well it’d probably make you about fifty thousand gold. That’s assuming one gold per cup.”

“That much?” said the Lychee.

“Easily!” said the merchant. “Imagine what you could do with this place. New banners, restore the stonework, get some fresh fruit in. I can set you up. A shop in the capital itself, perhaps? How about ‘Nektariin’s Nektar’—with a ‘k’— as a store name?”

“Oh, I rather like that,” said the Lychee.

“Well,” said Draloth, now up to his thighs in fruit juice, “maybe we could discuss it over a drink?”

Nektariin stopped the flow of juice coming from the stick. “Yes, would you prefer a smoothie or a lemonade?”